This is whatlife's goals really promiseafter Love even, after beautiful romance, love and sentimentafter every precious wordthese all lack meaningif there is no body-capturedeep withinand tremblingsurrenderwillingly givenand received.

Not Interested In The Brand Name Of Your Audience

Not interested in the brand name of your audience. Poetry makes its own up on the go, resonates with the stars and the fireflies, mysteriously marauds its own sacred shrines for the relics of holy metaphors that can be melted down into new sensibilities. And you, when you loseyour faith in your herbs ability to heal, is it you that lets the medicine down, the exhausted wavelength of an imploding star, or is your magic just not strong enough anymore to know when to keep its mouth shut, its grammarlike the secret name of a god, not a public convention.

It's irrelevant to me if you blood your abstractions, mythic deflation stabbing them through the heart to keep it from pumping the colour out of the rose and hanging them upside down over a bathtub.Or that your insecticidal severances have been so cleanly disposed of like the wings of butterflies in the mandibles of seriatim ants. The reek of formic acid. And it's hard not to notice that your gypsy nettles don't dance to music. You've got your head stuck up the eye of the needle again. Must cost you a fortune in locksmiths.And why, when you make a confession of all your sins of omission, does it always sound like you're ratting someone out? Or you've got a deathmask on you're always threatening to take offlike a crab carapace in a tidal pool with a detached claw trying to intimate the great sea of awareness beyondthat's never heard of you, into making waves even a shore-hugger buried in a puddle could handle?

You can make a cult of your doubt and cynicism, snakes on the ladders and stairwells of your pretensions, but I'm not going to be initiated into it. Just because I was born in a sewer doesn't mean I bathed in it every time it rained. A metaphor is a metaphor that's looking for something to compare itself to and picture-music isn't a drum roll at the unveiling of a new logo for the hysterically futile fans of your dysfunctional aspirations to make a big splash. As if the pond were never big enough for the frog.

Your words don't touch my heart, change my life, make a serious attempt on my life, derange me, do anything to me, just lie there so disconnected from my spinal cord they're clear cut yarrow sticks that have never heard of the Book of Changes. Lean-tos and collapsed tentsin the shadows of Stone Henge. No moon. No Taj Mahal. You're an architect of flowers, but you don't come with any instructions for assembly. Or even a bag of tools to flint knap your costume jewellery into arrowheads, you could always hurl at a turtle on the run, since it's obvious there's nothing wildly alive in the woods that has anything to fear from a poet who can't handle a bowanymore than he can a lyre strung from his own gut.

No urgency in your work. No necessity, risk, danger. Nothing lethal in the windowsill jungles you explore. Nothing driving you like the inconsolable dead into the unmarked grave of a black hole that never bottoms out like a death in life experience giving birth to a whole new universe of not twoevery morning you wake up in it grateful for the chance to teach your club-footed absurdity to dance with the bones of distinguished skeletons who are experts at knowing how to necro-romanticize the abyss.

When words talk to words about words it's not because imagination has run out of poetswho aren't unsayable or self-destructive enough to sacrifice their voices bleeding for the unattainableso that every poem is history written by the losers, it's because there's no visionary flash back when you drown in your own reflection in a narcissistic labyrinth of mirrors. No crash and burn in your elegaic encounters with what you're missing.Your absence doesn't leave a mark on the worldas you seek corporate applause for your trained individualismtweaking your neuronic synapses with the reflexes of early amphibians, one foot on shore, one in the boatjust to play it safe, a wishbone bridging both mediumslike a witching wand twitching over a watershed with a dislocated pelvis that makes you dance with a limplike Giovanni's frog jumping between electrodes, or as I remember, growing up, little girls playing hopscotchon a sidewalk chalked with the outlines of corpses with photo ops of the brand names on their toe tags.

Lycus the Centaur

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS

(The Argument: Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur).

Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell To wander, fore-doomed, in that circle of hell Where Witchery works with her will like a god, Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,— At a word,—at a touch,—at a flash of the eye, But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie, Things born of a wish—to endure for a thought, Or last for long ages—to vanish to nought, Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven, And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether They kept the world's birthday and brighten'd together! For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, The face I might dote on, should live out the lease Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease: And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream To another—each horrid,—and drank of the stream Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught,— Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup. And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear; For once, at my suppering, I plucked in the dusk An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk; But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore, And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core; And once—only once—for the love of its blush, I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright, While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight; And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note, That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd!

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree,— Oh! for innocent death,—and to suddenly win it, I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it; I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink, Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink; I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight; I ran at my fears—they were fears and no more, For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, But moan'd—all their brutalized flesh could not smother The horrible truth,—we were kin to each other!

They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief, All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: The leopard was there,—baby-mild in its feature; And the tiger, black-barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore; And the laughing hyena—but laughing no more; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine; And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, How thoughtful in sadness! but this is no season To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came, That hung down their heads with a human-like shame; The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair; And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust, Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust; While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot, As I brought them the image of what they were not.

Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking Through vile brutal organs—low tremulous croaking: Cries swallow'd abruptly—deep animal tones Attuned to strange passion, and full-utter'd groans; All shuddering weaken, till hush'd in a pause Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws; And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er The tale of their woes; but the silence told more, That writhed on their tongues; and I knelt on the sod, And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring god, For the sad congregation of supplicants there, That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer; And I ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep, That I wept for my heart-ease,—but they could not weep, And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry, At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress, I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress, Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my palm, And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard fate From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate; So they passively bow'd—save the serpent, that leapt To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd My lips in rash love,—then drew backward, and glister'd Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright, Dropt down, but swift started away from my sight!

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not, When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet, And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet: But I fled—though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled,— Though they call'd—and perchance but to ask, had I seen Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been: But I stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told, Might translate me in flesh to a brute; and I dreaded To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded With some pity,—and love in that pity perchance— To a thing not all lovely; for once at glance, Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under The long fenny grass,—with so lovely a breast, Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?

So I roamed in that circle of horrors, and Fear Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near Cluster'd trees for their gloom—not to shelter from heat— But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet; And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face, In the horrible likeness of demons (that none Could see, like invisible flames in the sun); But grew to one monster that seized on the light, Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night; Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south; Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light; I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close, When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes, That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws, And whirls of long tails:—I have seen the quick flutter Of fragments dissevered,—and necks stretch'd to utter Long screamings of pain,—the swift motion of blows, And wrestling of arms—to the flight at the close, When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings, And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their wings.

Thus they fled—not forgotten—but often to grow Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean I knew not, nor whether the love I had won Was of heaven or hell—till one day in the sun, In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky, Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye. And when in my musings I gazed on the stream, In motionless trances of thought, there would seem A face like that face, looking upward through mine: With his eyes full of love, and the dim-drownd shine Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue Serene:—there I stood for long hours but to view Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things That once had been wonders—the fishes with wings, And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup, And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam, Slow winding along like a tide in the stream. Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought Held me dear in the pearl of her eye—and I brought My wish to that fancy; and often I dash'd My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink, Chill'd by watery fears, how that beauty might sink With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind meWith its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind meIn some eddy to hum out my life in her ear, Like a spider-caught bee,—and in aid of that fear Came the tardy remembrance—Oh falsest of men! Why was not that beauty remember'd till then? My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run Into mine—like a drop—that our fate might be one, That now, even now,—may-be,—clasp'd in a dream, That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream, And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind, Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear, Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one That loved me,—but oh to fly from her, and shun Her love like a pest—though her love was as true To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue; For why should I love her with love that would bring All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing? Because of her rival,—even Her whose witch-face I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank, Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank; Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale Of Scylla,—and Picus, imprison'd to speak His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak.

Then they ceased—I had heard as the voice of my star That told me the truth of my fortunes—thus far I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush Of deep meditation,—when lo! a light crush Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the night Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp'd of the light Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream, Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept throwing Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll'd Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold, Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind, Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal The blue that was in them;—they oped and she raised Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed With her eyes on my eyes; but their color and shine Was of that which they look'd on, and mostly of mine— For she loved me,—except when she blush'd, and they sank, Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank, Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told meHow she put on her veil, and in love to behold meWould wing through the sun till she fainted away Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. But now they were heal'd,—O my heart, it still dances When I think of the charm of her changeable glances, And my image how small when it sank in the deep Of her eyes where her soul was,—Alas! now they weep, And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf She has pluck'd with her tresses? Who listens her grief Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat Them together? Ah! surely her flowers float adown To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown For need of her mercy,—even he whose twin-brother Will miss him forever; and the sorrowful mother Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is, Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain We loved,—how we loved!—for I thought not again Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that place If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face, Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown'd For my absence,—her arms were the arms that sought round And claspt me to nought; for I gazed and became Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name For two loves, and call'd ever on Ægle, sweet maid Of the sky-loving waters,—and was not afraid Of the sight of her skin;—for it never could be; Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me!

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd space, Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face Had been with me for joy,—when she told me indeed Her love was self-task'd with a work that would need Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty, Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over. So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep Of dreams,—but their meaning was hidden too deep To be read what their woe was;—but still it was woe That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro In that river of night;—and the gaze of their eyes Was sad,—and the bend of their brows,—and their cries Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears Travell'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears Awaked me, and lo! I was couch'd in a bower, The growth of long summers rear'd up in an hour! Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly From this magic, but could not, because that my eye Grew love-idle among the rich blooms; and the earth Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth Of some bird was above me,—who, even in fear, Would startle the thrush? and methought there drew near A form as of Ægle,—but it was not the face Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place, Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death, Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my breath. There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed, Her spite—and her countenance changed with her mind As she plann'd how to thrall me with beauty, and bind My soul to her charms,—and her long tresses play'd From shade into shine and from shine into shade, Like a day in mid-autumn,—first fair, O how fair! With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair That clung round her neck,—those dark locks that I prize, For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes Of that fathomless hue,—but they changed as they roll'd, And brighten'd, and suddenly blazed into gold That she comb'd into flames, and the locks that fell down Turn'd dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown, Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, That innocence wears when she is but a child; And her eyes,—Oh I ne'er had been witched with their shine, Had they been any other, my Ægle, than thine!

Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I madden'd In the full of their light,—but I sadden'd and sadden'd The deeper I look'd,—till I sank on the snow Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe, And answer'd its throb with the shudder of fears, And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, And strain'd her white arms with the still languid weight Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame To hide me from her the true Ægle—that came With the words on her lips the false witch had fore-given To make me immortal—for now I was even At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush Of world-sounds in my ears to cry welcome, and rush With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river. Oh, would it had flown from my body forever, Ere I listen'd those words, when I felt with a start, The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart, And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell Had perished in horror—and heard the farewell Of that voice that was drown'd in the dash of the stream! How fain had I follow'd, and plunged with that scream Into death, but my being indignantly lagg'd Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragg'd Behind me:—O Circe! O mother of spite! Speak the last of that curse! and imprison me quite In the husk of a brute,—that no pity may name The man that I was,—that no kindred may claim— 'The monster I am! Let me utterly beBrute-buried, and Nature's dishonor with meUninscribed!'—But she listen'd my prayer, that was praise To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze On the river for love,—and perchance she would make In pity a maid without eyes for my sake, And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the wave, What monster I was, and it trembled and gaveThe true shape of my grief, and I turn'd with my face From all waters forever, and fled through that place, Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass'd Its bounds, and the world was before me at last.

There I wander'd in sorrow, and shunned the abodes Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods, But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun On the cities, where man was a million, not one; And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascending, That show'd where the hearts of many were blending, And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came From the trumpets that gather'd whole bands in one fame As a chorus of man,—and they stream'd from the gates Like a dusky libation poured out to the Fates. But at times there were gentler processions of peace That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their cease, There were women! there men! but to me a third sex I saw them all dots—yet I loved them as specks: And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten! Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deep In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks That murmur'd between us and kiss'd them with looks; But the willows unbosom'd their secret, and never I return'd to a spot I had startled forever, Though I oft long'd to know, but could ask it of none, Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son?

For the haunters of fields they all shunn'd me by flight; The men in their horror, the women in fright; None ever remain'd save a child once that sported Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted The breeze; and beside him a speckled snake lay Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away From the flower at his finger; he rose and drew near Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear, But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright To grow to large manhood of merciful might. He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel, The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel, And question'd my face with wide eyes; but when under My lids he saw tears,—for I wept at his wonder, He stroked me, and utter'd such kindliness then, That the once love of women, the friendship of men In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss On my heart in its desolate day such as this! And I yearn'd at his cheeks in my love, and down bent, And lifted him up in my arms with intent To kiss him,—but he cruel-kindly, alas! Held out to my lips a pluck'd handful of grass! Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled The stone he indignantly hurl'd at my head, That dissever'd my ear,—but I felt not, whose fate Was to meet more distress in his love than his hate!

Thus I wander'd, companion'd of grief and forlorn Till I wish'd for that land where my being was born But what was that land with its love, where my home Was self-shut against me; for why should I come Like an after-distress to my gray-bearded father, With a blight to the last of his sight?—let him rather Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn Where I was not, and still in fond memory turnTo his son even such as he left him. Oh, how Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but now Like Gods to my humbled estate?—or how bear The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the care Of my hands? Then I turn'd me self-banish'd, and came Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same As myself. I have heard how they met by a stream In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream That made wretches of many, as she roll'd her wild eyes Against heaven, and so vanish'd.—The gentle and wise Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others their ill In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them still.

Canto the Eleventh

IWhen Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it -- 't was no matter what he said:They say his system 't is in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head;And yet who can believe it? I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead,Or adamant, to find the world a spirit,And wear my head, denying that I wear it.

IIWhat a sublime discovery 't was to make the Universe universal egotism,That all's ideal -- all ourselves! -- I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism.Oh Doubt! -- if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee; But which I doubt extremely -- thou sole prismOf the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit!Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.

IIIFor ever and anon comes Indigestion, (Not the most "dainty Ariel") and perplexesOur soarings with another sort of question: And that which after all my spirit vexes,Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on, Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder,The world, which at the worst's a glorious blunder --

IVIf it be chance; or if it be according To the old text, still better: -- lest it shouldTurn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording, As several people think such hazards rude.They're right; our days are too brief for affording Space to dispute what no one ever couldDecide, and everybody one day willKnow very clearly -- or at least lie still.

VAnd therefore will I leave off metaphysical Discussion, which is neither here nor there:If I agree that what is, is; then this I call Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair;The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical:I don't know what the reason is -- the airPerhaps; but as I suffer from the shocksOf illness, I grow much more orthodox.

VIThe first attack at once proved the Divinity (But that I never doubted, nor the Devil);The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity;The third, the usual Origin of Evil;The fourth at once establish'd the whole Trinity On so uncontrovertible a level,That I devoutly wish'd the three were four,On purpose to believe so much the more.

VIITo our Theme. -- The man who has stood on the Acropolis, And look'd down over Attica; or heWho has sail'd where picturesque Constantinople is, Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken teaIn small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh,May not think much of London's first appearance --But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?

VIIIDon Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill; Sunset the time, the place the same declivityWhich looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity;While every thing around was calm and still, Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot heHeard, -- and that bee-like, bubbling, busy humOf cities, that boil over with their scum: --

IXI say, Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation, Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit,And lost in wonder of so great a nation,Gave way to 't, since he could not overcome it."And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station; Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb itRacks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrectionAwaits it, each new meeting or election.

X"Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay But what they please; and if that things be dear,'T is only that they love to throw away Their cash, to show how much they have a-year.Here laws are all inviolate; none lay Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear:Here" -- he was interrupted by a knife,With, -- "Damn your eyes! your money or your life!" --

XIThese freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiterBehind his carriage; and, like handy lads, Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,In which the heedless gentleman who gads Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,May find himself within that isle of richesExposed to lose his life as well as breeches.

XIIJuan, who did not understand a word Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!"And even that he had so rarely heard, He sometimes thought 't was only their "Salam,"Or "God be with you!" -- and 't is not absurd To think so: for half English as I am(To my misfortune), never can I sayI heard them wish "God with you," save that way; --

XIIIJuan yet quickly understood their gesture, And being somewhat choleric and sudden,Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture, And fired it into one assailant's pudding --Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture, And roar'd out, as he writhed his native mud in,Unto his nearest follower or henchman,"Oh Jack! I'm floor'd by that 'ere bloody Frenchman!"

XIVOn which Jack and his train set off at speed, And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance,Came up, all marvelling at such a deed, And offering, as usual, late assistance.Juan, who saw the moon's late minion bleed As if his veins would pour out his existence,Stood calling out for bandages and lint,And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint.

XV"Perhaps," thought he, "it is the country's wont To welcome foreigners in this way: nowI recollect some innkeepers who don't Differ, except in robbing with a bow,In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front. But what is to be done? I can't allowThe fellow to lie groaning on the road:So take him up; I'll help you with the load."

XVIBut ere they could perform this pious duty,The dying man cried, "Hold! I've got my gruel!Oh for a glass of max! We've miss'd our booty;Let me die where I am!" And as the fuelOf life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sootyThe drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew illHis breath, -- he from his swelling throat untiedA kerchief, crying, "Give Sal that!" -- and died.

XVIIThe cravat stain'd with bloody drops fell down Before Don Juan's feet: he could not tellExactly why it was before him thrown, Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell.Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town, A thorough varmint, and a real swell,Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled,His pockets first and then his body riddled.

XVIIIDon Juan, having done the best he could In all the circumstances of the case,As soon as "Crowner's quest" allow'd, pursued His travels to the capital apace; --Esteeming it a little hard he should In twelve hours' time, and very little space,Have been obliged to slay a freeborn nativeIn self-defence: this made him meditative.

XIXHe from the world had cut off a great man, Who in his time had made heroic bustle.Who in a row like Tom could lead the van, Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle?Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bow Street's ban) On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle?Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal (his blowing),So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?

XXBut Tom's no more -- and so no more of Tom. Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 't isNot long before the most of them go home. Hail! Thamis, Hail! Upon thy verge it isThat Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss,Through Kennington and all the other "tons,"Which makes us wish ourselves in town at once; --

XXIThrough Groves, so call'd as being void of trees (Like lucus from no light); through prospects namedMount Pleasant, as containing nought to please, Nor much to climb; through little boxes framedOf bricks, to let the dust in at your ease, With "To be let" upon their doors proclaim'd;Through "Rows" most modestly call'd "Paradise,"Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice; --

XXIIThrough coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion;Here taverns wooing to a pint of "purl," There mails fast flying off like a delusion;There barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl In windows; here the lamplighter's infusionSlowly distill'd into the glimmering glass(For in those days we had not got to gas); --

XXIIIThrough this, and much, and more, is the approach Of travellers to mighty Babylon:Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach, With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one.I could say more, but do not choose to encroach Upon the Guide-book's privilege. The sunHad set some time, and night was on the ridgeOf twilight, as the party cross'd the bridge, --

XXIVThat's rather fine. The gentle sound of Thamis -- Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream,Though hardly heard through multifarious "damme's" --The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam,The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where fame is A spectral resident -- whose pallid beamIn shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile --Make this a sacred part of Albion's isle.

XXVThe Druids' groves are gone -- so much the better: Stone-Henge is not -- but what the devil is it? --But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter,That madmen may not bite you on a visit;The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor;The Mansion House too (though some people quiz it)To me appears a stiff yet grand erection;But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection.

XXVIThe line of lights, too, up to Charing Cross, Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscationLike gold as in comparison to dross, Match'd with the Continent's illumination,Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss.The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation,And when they grew so -- on their new-found lantern,Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.

XXVIIA row of gentlemen along the streets Suspended may illuminate mankind,As also bonfires made of country seats; But the old way is best for the purblind:The other looks like phosphorus on sheets, A sort of ignis fatuus to the mind,Which, though 't is certain to perplex and frighten,Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.

XXVIIIBut London's so well lit, that if Diogenes Could recommence to hunt his honest man,And found him not amidst the various progenies Of this enormous city's spreading span,'T were not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his Yet undiscover'd treasure. What I can,I've done to find the same throughout life's journey,But see the world is only one attorney.

XXIXOver the stones still rattling up Pall Mall, Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinnerAs thunder'd knockers broke the long seal'd spell Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinnerAdmitted a small party as night fell, -- Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner,Pursued his path, and drove past some hotels,St. James's Palace and St. James's "Hells."

XXXThey reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door A tide of well-clad waiters, and aroundThe mob stood, and as usual several score Of those pedestrian Paphians who aboundIn decent London when the daylight's o'er; Commodious but immoral, they are foundUseful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage. --But Juan now is stepping from his carriage

XXXIInto one of the sweetest of hotels, Especially for foreigners -- and mostlyFor those whom favour or whom fortune swells, And cannot find a bill's small items costly.There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells (The den of many a diplomatic lost lie),Until to some conspicuous square they pass,And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.

XXXIIJuan, whose was a delicate commission, Private, though publicly important, boreNo title to point out with due precisionThe exact affair on which he was sent o'er.'T was merely known, that on a secret mission A foreigner of rank had graced our shore,Young, handsome, and accomplish'd, who was said(In whispers) to have turn'd his sovereign's head.

XXXIIISome rumour also of some strange adventures Had gone before him, and his wars and loves;And as romantic heads are pretty painters, And, above all, an Englishwoman's rovesInto the excursive, breaking the indentures Of sober reason wheresoe'er it moves,He found himself extremely in the fashion,Which serves our thinking people for a passion.

XXXIVI don't mean that they are passionless, but quiteThe contrary; but then 't is in the head;Yet as the consequences are as bright As if they acted with the heart instead,What after all can signify the site Of ladies' lucubrations? So they leadIn safety to the place for which you start,What matters if the road be head or heart?

XXXVJuan presented in the proper place, To proper placemen, every Russ credential;And was received with all the due grimace By those who govern in the mood potential,Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face, Thought (what in state affairs is most essential)That they as easily might do the youngster,As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.

XXXVIThey err'd, as agéd men will do; but by And by we'll talk of that; and if we don't,'T will be because our notion is not high Of politicians and their double front,Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie: -- Now what I love in women is, they won'tOr can't do otherwise than lie, but do itSo well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.

XXXVIIAnd, after all, what is a lie? 'T is butThe truth in masquerade; and I defyHistorians, heroes, lawyers. priests, to put A fact without some leaven of a lie.The very shadow of true Truth would shut Up annals, revelations, poesy,And prophecy -- except it should be datedSome years before the incidents related.

XXXVIIIPraised be all liars and all lies! Who nowCan tax my mild Muse with misanthropy?She rings the world's "Te Deum," and her brow Blushes for those who will not: -- but to sighIs idle; let us like most others bow, Kiss hands, feet, any part of majesty,After the good example of "Green Erin,"Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.

XXXIXDon Juan was presented, and his dress And mien excited general admiration --I don't know which was more admired or less: One monstrous diamond drew much observation,Which Catherine in a moment of "ivresse" (In love or brandy's fervent fermentation)Bestow'd upon him, as the public learn'd;And, to say truth, it had been fairly earn'd.

XLBesides the ministers and underlings, Who must be courteous to the accreditedDiplomatists of rather wavering kings, Until their royal riddle's fully read,The very clerks, -- those somewhat dirty springs Of office, or the house of office, fedBy foul corruption into streams, -- even theyWere hardly rude enough to earn their pay:

XLIAnd insolence no doubt is what they are Employ'd for, since it is their daily labour,In the dear offices of peace or war; And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour,When for a passport, or some other bar To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore),If he found not his spawn of taxborn riches,Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of b-----s.

XLIIBut Juan was received with much "empressement:" -- These phrases of refinement I must borrowFrom our next neighbours' land, where, like a chessman, There is a move set down for joy or sorrowNot only in mere talking, but the press. Man In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough,More than on continents -- as if the sea(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free.

XLIIIAnd yet the British "Damme"'s rather Attic: Your continental oaths are but incontinent,And turn on things which no aristocratic Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anentThis subject quote; as it would be schismatic In politesse, and have a sound affronting in 't: --But "Damme"'s quite ethereal, though too daring --Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing.

XLIVFor downright rudeness, ye may stay at home; For true or false politeness (and scarce thatNow) you may cross the blue deep and white foam --The first the emblem (rarely though) of whatYou leave behind, the next of much you come To meet. However, 't is no time to chatOn general topics: poems must confineThemselves to unity, like this of mine.

XLVIn the great world, -- which, being interpreted, Meaneth the west or worst end of a city,And about twice two thousand people bred By no means to be very wise or witty,But to sit up while others lie in bed, And look down on the universe with pity, --Juan, as an inveterate patrician,Was well received by persons of condition.

XLVIHe was a bachelor, which is a matter Of import both to virgin and to bride,The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter; And (should she not hold fast by love or pride)'T is also of some moment to the latter: A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side,Requires decorum, and is apt to doubleThe horrid sin -- and what's still worse, the trouble.

XLVIIBut Juan was a bachelor -- of arts, And parts, and hearts: he danced and sung, and hadAn air as sentimental as Mozart's Softest of melodies; and could be sadOr cheerful, without any "flaws or starts," Just at the proper time; and though a lad,Had seen the world -- which is a curious sight,And very much unlike what people write.

XLVIIIFair virgins blush'd upon him; wedded dames Bloom'd also in less transitory hues;For both commodities dwell by the Thames,The painting and the painted; youth, ceruse,Against his heart preferr'd their usual claims, Such as no gentleman can quite refuse:Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothersInquired his income, and if he had brothers.

XLIXThe milliners who furnish "drapery Misses" Throughout the season, upon speculationOf payment ere the honey-moon's last kissesHave waned into a crescent's coruscation,Thought such an opportunity as this is, Of a rich foreigner's initiation,Not to be overlook'd -- and gave such credit,That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid it.

LThe Blues, that tender tribe who sigh o'er sonnets, And with the pages of the last ReviewLine the interior of their heads or bonnets, Advanced in all their azure's highest hue:They talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two;And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?

LIJuan, who was a little superficial, And not in literature a great Drawcansir,Examined by this learnéd and especial Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer:His duties warlike, loving or official, His steady application as a dancer,Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene,Which now he found was blue instead of green.

LIIHowever, he replied at hazard, with A modest confidence and calm assurance,Which lent his learned lucubrations pith, And pass'd for arguments of good endurance.That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith (Who at sixteen translated "Hercules Furens"Into as furious English), with her best look,Set down his sayings in her common-place book.

LIIIJuan knew several languages -- as well He might -- and brought them up with skill, in timeTo save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.There wanted but this requisite to swell His qualities (with them) into sublime:Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Mævia Mannish,Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.

LIVHowever, he did pretty well, and was Admitted as an aspirant to allThe coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass, At great assemblies or in parties small,He saw ten thousand living authors pass,That being about their average numeral;Also the eighty "greatest living poets,"As every paltry magazine can show its.

LVIn twice five years the "greatest living poet," Like to the champion in the fisty ring,Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it, Although 't is an imaginary thing.Even I -- albeit I'm sure I did not know it, Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king --Was reckon'd a considerable time,The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

LVIBut Juan was my Moscow, and FalieroMy Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain:"La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again:But I will fall at least as fell my hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go,With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

LVIISir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell Before and after; but now grown more holy,The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,A modern Ancient Pistol -- by the hilts?

LVIIIStill he excels that artificial hard Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vineYields him but vinegar for his reward, --That neutralised dull Dorus of the Nine;That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard;That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line: --Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at leastThe howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest. --

LIXThen there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me;He'll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be.Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor"Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

LXJohn Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Just as he really promised something great,If not intelligible, without Greek Contrived to talk about the gods of late,Much as they might have been supposed to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate;'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.

LXIThe list grows long of live and dead pretenders To that which none will gain -- or none will knowThe conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders His last award, will have the long grass growAbove his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. If I might augur, I should rate but lowTheir chances; they're too numerous, like the thirtyMock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.

LXIIThis is the literary lower empire, Where the prætorian bands take up the matter; --A "dreadful trade," like his who "gathers samphire,"The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter,With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire. Now, were I once at home, and in good satire,I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries,And show them what an intellectual war is.

LXIIII think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks; -- but it is hardly worth my whileWith such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I've not the necessary bile;My natural temper's really aught but stern, And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile;And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy,And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

LXIVMy Juan, whom I left in deadly peril Amongst live poets and blue ladies, pastWith some small profit through that field so sterile, Being tired in time, and, neither least nor last,Left it before he had been treated very ill; And henceforth found himself more gaily class'dAmongst the higher spirits of the day,The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.

LXVHis morns he pass'd in business -- which, dissected, Was like all business a laborious nothingThat leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing,And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathingAll kinds of toil, save for our country's good --Which grows no better, though 't is time it should.

LXVIHis afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons, Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hourIn riding round those vegetable puncheons Call'd "Parks," where there is neither fruit nor flowerEnough to gratify a bee's slight munchings; But after all it is the only "bower"(In Moore's phrase), where the fashionable fairCan form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.

LXVIIThen dress, then dinner, then awakes the world! Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roarThrough street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd Like harness'd meteors; then along the floorChalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl'd; Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,Which opens to the thousand happy fewAn earthly paradise of "Or Molu."

LXVIIIThere stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz,The only dance which teaches girls to think, Makes one in love even with its very faults.Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts,'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb,And gain an inch of staircase at a time.

LXIXThrice happy he who, after a survey Of the good company, can win a corner,A door that's in or boudoir out of the way, Where he may fix himself like small "Jack Horner,"And let the Babel round run as it may, And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,Or an approver, or a mere spectator,Yawning a little as the night grows later.

LXXBut this won't do, save by and by; and he Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,Must steer with care through all that glittering sea Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to whereHe deems it is his proper place to be; Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skillWhere Science marshals forth her own quadrille.

LXXIOr, if he dance not, but hath higher views Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride,Let him take care that that which he pursues Is not at once too palpably descried.Full many an eager gentleman oft rues His haste: impatience is a blundering guide,Amongst a people famous for reflection,Who like to play the fool with circumspection.

LXXIIBut, if you can contrive, get next at supper; Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle: --Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,Which sits for ever upon memory's crupper,The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue! IllCan tender souls relate the rise and fallOf hopes and fears which shake a single ball.

LXXIIIBut these precautionary hints can touch Only the common run, who must pursue,And watch, and ward; whose plans a word too much Or little overturns; and not the fewOr many (for the number's sometimes such) Whom a good mien, especially if new,Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense,Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.

LXXIVOur hero, as a hero, young and handsome, Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom, Before he can escape from so much dangerAs will environ a conspicuous man. Some Talk about poetry, and "rack and manger,"And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble; --I wish they knew the life of a young noble.

LXXVThey are young, but know not youth -- it is anticipated; Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated; Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew;Both senates see their nightly votes participated Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew;And having voted, dined, drunk, gamed, and whored,The family vault receives another lord.

LXXVI"Where is the world?" cries Young, at eighty" -- "WhereThe world in which a man was born?" Alas!Where is the world of eight years past? 'T was there --I look for it -- 't is gone, a globe of glass!Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.

LXXVIIWhere is Napoleon the Grand? God knows. Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell:Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes? And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents?And where -- oh, where the devil are the rents?

LXXVIIIWhere's Brummel? Dish'd. Where's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled. Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George the Third?Where is his will? (That's not so soon unriddled.) And where is "Fum" the Fourth, our "royal bird?"Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard:"Caw me, caw thee" -- for six months hath been hatchingThis scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.

LXXIXWhere is Lord This? And where my Lady That?The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?Some laid aside like an old Opera hat, Married, unmarried, and remarried (this isAn evolution oft performed of late). Where are the Dublin shouts -- and London hisses?Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. WhereMy friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.

LXXXWhere are the Lady Carolines and Franceses? Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annalsSo brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is, -- Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panelsBroken in carriages, and all the phantasies Of fashion, -- say what streams now fill those channels?Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

LXXXISome who once set their caps at cautious dukes,Have taken up at length with younger brothers:Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks: Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers;Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks: In short, the list of alterations bothers.There's little strange in this, but something strange isThe unusual quickness of these common changes.

LXXXIITalk not of seventy years as age; in sevenI have seen more changes, down from monarchs toThe humblest individual under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through.I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new:Nought's permanent among the human race,Except the Whigs not getting into place.

LXXXIIII have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter, Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke(No matter which) turn politician stupider, If that can well be, than his wooden look.But it is time that I should hoist my "blue Peter," And sail for a new theme: -- I have seen -- and shookTo see it -- the king hiss'd, and then caress'd;But don't pretend to settle which was best.

LXXXIVI have seen the Landholders without a rap --I have seen Joanna Southcote -- I have seen --The House of Commons turn'd to a tax-trap --I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen --I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap --I have seen a Congress doing all that's mean --I have seen some nations like o'erloaded assesKick off their burthens, meaning the high classes.

LXXXVI have seen small poets, and great prosers, and Interminable -- not eternal -- speakers --I have seen the funds at war with house and land --I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers --I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand By slaves on horseback -- I have seen malt liquorsExchanged for "thin potations" by John Bull --I have seen john half detect himself a fool. --

LXXXVIBut "carpe diem," Juan, "carpe, carpe!" To-morrow sees another race as gayAnd transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. "Life's a poor player," -- then "play out the play,Ye villains!" above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say:Be hypocritical, be cautious, beNot what you seem, but always what you see.

LXXXVIIBut how shall I relate in other cantos Of what befell our hero in the land,Which 't is the common cry and lie to vaunt as A moral country? But I hold my hand --For I disdain to write an Atalantis; But 't is as well at once to understand,You are not a moral people, and you know itWithout the aid of too sincere a poet.

LXXXVIIIWhat Juan saw and underwent shall beMy topic, with of course the due restrictionWhich is required by proper courtesy; And recollect the work is only fiction,And that I sing of neither mine nor me, Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubtThis -- when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out.

LXXXIXWhether he married with the third or fourth Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess,Or whether with some virgin of more worth (I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties)He took to regularly peopling Earth, Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is, --Or whether he was taken in for damages,For being too excursive in his homages, --

XCIs yet within the unread events of time. Thus far, go forth, thou lay, which I will backAgainst the same given quantity of rhyme, For being as much the subject of attackAs ever yet was any work sublime, By those who love to say that white is black.So much the better! -- I may stand alone,But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.

Don Juan: Canto the Eleventh

I When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it--'twas no matter what he sald: They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head; And yet who can believe it! I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it.II What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the Universe universal egotism, That all's ideal--all ourselves: I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism. Oh Doubt!--if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee, But which I doubt extremely--thou sole prism Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit! Heaven's brandy, though our brain can hardly bear it.III

For ever and anon comes Indigestion (Not the most "dainty Ariel") and perplexes Our soarings with another sort of question: And that which after all my spirit vexes, Is, that I find no spot where Man can rest eye on, Without confusion of the sorts and sexes, Of beings, stars, and this unriddled wonder, The World, which at the worst's a glorious blunder--IV

If it be chance--or, if it be according To the Old Text, still better: lest it should Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording, As several people think such hazards rude. They're right; our days are too brief for affording Space to dispute what no one ever could Decide, and everybody one day will Know very clearly--or at least lie still.V

And therefore will I leave off metaphysical Discussion, which is neither here nor there: If I agree that what is, is; then this I call Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair. The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical: I don't know what the reason is--the air Perhaps; but as I suffer from the shocks Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.VI

The first attack at once prov'd the Divinity (But that I never doubted, nor the Devil); The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity; The third, the usual Origin of Evil; The fourth at once establish'd the whole Trinity On so uncontrovertible a level, That I devoutly wish'd the three were four-- On purpose to believe so much the more.VII

To our theme.--The man who has stood on the Acropolis, And look'd down over Attica; or he Who has sail'd where picturesque Constantinople is, Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea In small-ey'd China's crockery-ware metropolis, Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, May not think much of London's first appearance-- But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence!VIII

Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill; Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity, While everything around was calm and still, Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he Heard, and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with their scum--IX

I say, Don Juan, wrapp'd in contemplation, Walk'd on behind his carriage, o'er the summit, And lost in wonder of so great a nation, Gave way to't, since he could not overcome it. "And here," he cried, "is Freedom's chosen station; Here peals the People's voice nor can entomb it Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection Awaits it, each new meeting or election.X

"Here are chaste wives, pure lives; her people pay But what they please; and if that things be dear, 'Tis only that they love to throw away Their cash, to show how much they have a-year. Here laws are all inviolate; none lay Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear; Here"--he was interrupted by a knife, With--"Damn your eyes! your money or your life!"XI

These free-born sounds proceeded from four pads In ambush laid, who had perceiv'd him loiter Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads, Had seiz'd the lucky hour to reconnoitre, In which the heedless gentleman who gads Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter May find himself within that isle of riches Expos'd to lose his life as well as breeches.XII

Juan, who did not understand a word Of English, save their shibboleth, "God damn!" And even that he had so rarely heard, He sometimes thought 'twas only their Salam," Or "God be with you!"--and 'tis not absurd To think so, for half English as I am (To my misfortune) never can I say I heard them wish "God with you," save that way--XIII

Juan yet quickly understood their gesture, And being somewhat choleric and sudden, Drew forth a pocket pistol from his vesture, And fired it into one assailant's pudding, Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture, And roar'd out, as he writh'd his native mud in, Unto his nearest follower or henchman, "Oh Jack! I'm floor'd by that ere bloody Frenchman!"XIV

On which Jack and his train set off at speed, And Juan's suite, late scatter'd at a distance, Came up, all marvelling at such a deed, And offering, as usual, late assistance. Juan, who saw the moon's late minion bleed As if his veins would pour out his existence, Stood calling out for bandages and lint, And wish'd he had been less hasty with his flint.XV

"Perhaps,"thought he,"it is the country's wont To welcome foreigners in this way: now I recollect some innkeepers who don't Differ, except in robbing with a bow, In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front. But what is to be done? I can't allow The fellow to lie groaning on the road: So take him up, I'll help you with the load."XVI

But ere they could perform this pious duty, The dying man cried, "Hold! I've got my gruel! Oh! for a glass of max ! We've miss'd our booty-- Let me die where I am!" And as the fuel Of life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty The drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew ill His breath, he from his swelling throat untied A kerchief, crying "Give Sal that!"--and died.XVII

The cravat stain'd with bloody drops fell down Before Don Juan's feet: he could not tell Exactly why it was before him thrown, Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell. Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town, A thorough varmint, and a real swell, Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled, His pockets first and then his body riddled.XVIII

Don Juan, having done the best he could In all the circumstances of the case, As soon as "Crowner's 'quest" allow'd, pursu'd His travels to the capital apace; Esteeming it a little hard he should In twelve hours' time, and very little space, Have been oblig'd to slay a free-born native In self-defence: this made him meditative.XIX

He from the world had cut off a great man, Who in his time had made heroic bustle. Who in a row like Tom could lead the van, Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle? Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bowstreet's ban) On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle? Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal (his blowing), So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?XX

But Tom's no more--and so no more of Tom. Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 'tis Not long before the most of them go home. Hail! Thamis, hail! Upon thy verge it is That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss, Through Kennington and all the other "tons," Which make us wish ourselves in town at once;XXI

Through Groves, so called as being void of trees, (Like lucus from no light); through prospects nam'd Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please, Nor much to climb; through little boxes fram'd Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease, With "To be let," upon their doors proclaim'd; Through "Rows" most modestly call'd "Paradise," Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice;XXII

Through coaches, drays, chok'd turnpikes, and a whirl Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion; Here taverns wooing to a pint of "purl," There mails fast flying off like a delusion; There barbers' blocks with periwigs in curl In windows; here the lamplighter's infusion Slowly distill'd into the glimmering glass (For in those days we had not got to gas);XXIII

Through this, and much, and more, is the approach Of travellers to mighty Babylon: Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach, With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one. I could say more, but do not choose to encroach Upon the guide-book's privilege. The sun Had set some time, and night was on the ridge Of twilight, as the party cross'd the bridge.XXIV

That's rather fine, the gentle sound of Thamis-- Who vindicates a moment, too, his stream-- Though hardly heard through multifarious "damme's": The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam, The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where Fame is A spectral resident--whose pallid beam In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile-- Make this a sacred part of Albion's Isle.XXV

The Druid's groves are gone--so much the better: Stonehenge is not--but what the devil is it?-- But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter, That madmen may not bite you on a visit; The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor; The Mansion House too (though some people quiz it) To me appears a stiff yet grand erection; But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection.XXVI

The line of lights too, up to Charing Cross, Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation Like gold as in comparison to dross, Match'd with the Continent's illumination, Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss. The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation, And when they grew so--on their new-found lantern, Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.XXVII

A row of Gentlemen along the streets Suspended may illuminate mankind, As also bonfires made of country seats; But the old way is best for the purblind: The other looks like phosphorus on sheets, A sort of [lang l]ignis fatuus[lang e] to the mind, Which, though 'tis certain to perplex and frighten, Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.XXVIII

But London's so well lit, that if Diogenes Could recommence to hunt his honest man And found him not amidst the various progenies Of this enormous city's spreading spawn, 'Twere not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his Yet undiscover'd treasure. What I can, I've done to find the same throughout life's journey, But see the World is only one attorney.XXIX

Over the stones still rattling, up Pall Mall, Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner As thunder'd knockers broke the long seal'd spell Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner Admitted a small party as night fell, Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner, Pursu'd his path, and drove past some hotels, St. James's Palace, and St. James's "Hells."XXX

They reach'd the hotel: forth stream'd from the front door A tide of well-clad waiters, and around The mob stood, and as usual several score Of those pedestrian Paphians who abound In decent London when the daylight's o'er; Commodious but immoral, they are found Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage: But Juan now is stepping from his carriageXXXI

Into one of the sweetest of hotels, Especially for foreigners--and mostly For those whom favour or whom fortune swells, And cannot find a bill's small items costly. There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells (The den of many a diplomatic lost lie), Until to some conspicuous square they pass, And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.XXXII

Juan, whose was a delicate commission, Private, though publicly important, bore No title to point out with due precision The exact affair on which he was sent o'er. 'Twas merely known, that on a secret mission A foreigner of rank had grac'd our shore, Young, handsome and accomplish'd, who was said (In whispers) to have turn'd his Sovereign's head.XXXIII

Some rumour also of some strange adventures Had gone before him, and his wars and loves; And as romantic heads are pretty painters, And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves Into the excursive, breaking the indentures Of sober reason, wheresoe'er it moves, He found himself extremely in the fashion, Which serves our thinking people for a passion.XXXIV

I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite The contrary; but then 'tis in the head; Yet as the consequences are as bright As if they acted with the heart instead, What after all can signify the site Of ladies' lucubrations? So they lead In safety to the place for which you start, What matters if the road be head or heart?XXXV

Juan presented in the proper place, To proper placement, every Russ credential; And was receiv'd with all the due grimace By those who govern in the mood potential, Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face, Thought (what in state affairs is most essential) That they as easily might do the youngster, As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.XXXVI

They err'd, as aged men will do; but by And by we'll talk of that; and if we don't, 'T will be because our notion is not high Of politicians and their double front, Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie: Now, what I love in women is, they won't Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.XXXVII

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but The truth in masquerade; and I defy Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put A fact without some leaven of a lie. The very shadow of true Truth would shut Up annals, revelations, poesy, And prophecy--except it should be dated Some years before the incidents related.XXXVIII

Prais'd be all liars and all lies! Who now Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy? She rings the World's "Te Deum," and her brow Blushes for those who will not: but to sigh Is idle; let us like most others bow, Kiss hands, feet, any part of Majesty, After the good example of "Green Erin," Whose shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.XXXIX

Don Juan was presented, and his dress And mien excited general admiration; I don't know which was more admir'd or less: One monstrous diamond drew much observation, Which Catherine in a moment of "ivresse" (In love or brandy's fervent fermentation) Bestow'd upon him, as the public learn'd; And, to say truth, it had been fairly earn'd.XL

Besides the ministers and underlings, Who must be courteous to the accredited Diplomatists of rather wavering kings, Until their royal riddle's fully read, The very clerks--those somewhat dirty springs Of Office, or the House of Office, fed By foul corruption into streams--even they Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay.XLI

And insolence no doubt is what they are Employ'd for, since it is their daily labour, In the dear offices of peace or war; And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour, When for a passport, or some other bar To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore), If he found not this spawn of tax-born riches, Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of b{-}{-}{-}{-}{-}s.XLII

But Juan was receiv'd with much "empressement" -- These phrases of refinement I must borrow From our next neighbours' land, where, like a chessman, There is a move set down for joy or sorrow, Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough, More than on continents--as if the sea (See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free.XLIII

And yet the British "Damme" 's rather Attic, Your continental oaths are but incontinent, And turn on things which no aristocratic Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent This subject quote; as it would be schismatic In politesse, and have a sound affronting in 't; But "Damme" 's quite ethereal, though too daring-- Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing.XLIV

For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home; For true or false politeness (and scarce that Now) you may cross the blue deep and white foam: The first the emblem (rarely though) of what You leave behind, the next of much you come To meet. However, 'tis no time to chat On general topics: poems must confine Themselves to Unity, like this of mine.XLV

In the great world--which, being interpreted, Meaneth the West or worst end of a city, And about twice two thousand people bred By no means to be very wise or witty, But to sit up while others lie in bed, And look down on the Universe with pity-- Juan, as an inveterate patrician, Was well receiv'd by persons of condition.XLVI

He was a bachelor, which is a matter Of import both to virgin and to bride, The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter; And (should she not hold fast by love or pride) 'Tis also of some momemt to the latter: A rib's a thorn in a wed gallant's side, Requires decorum, and is apt to double The horrid sin--and what's still worse the trouble.XLVII

But Juan was a bachelor--of arts, And parts, and hearts: he danc'd and sung, and had An air as sentimental as Mozart's Softest of melodies; and could be sad Or cheerful, without any "flaws or starts," Just at the proper time; and though a lad, Had seen the world--which is a curious sight, And very much unlike what people write.XLVIII

Fair virgins blush'd upon him; wedded dames Bloom'd also in less transitory hues; For both commodities dwell by the Thames The painting and the painted; Youth, Ceruse, Against his heart preferr'd their usual claims, Such as no gentleman can quite refuse; Daughters admir'd his dress, and pious mothers Inquir'd his income, and if he had brothers.XLIX

The milliners who furnish "drapery Misses" Throughout the season, upon speculation Of payment ere the Honeymoon's last kisses Have wan'd into a crescent's coruscation, Thought such an opportunity as this is, Of a rich foreigner's initiation, Not to be overlook'd--and gave such credit, That future bridegrooms swore, and sigh'd, and paid it.L

The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o'er sonnets, And with the pages of the last Review Line the interior of their heads or bonnets, Advanc'd in all their azure's highest hue: They talk'd bad French or Spanish, and upon its Late authors ask'd him for a hint or two; And which was softest, Russian or Castilian? And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?LI

Juan, who was a little superficial, And not in literature a great Drawcansir, Examin'd by this learned and especial Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer: His duties warlike, loving or official, His steady application as a dancer, Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene, Which now he found was blue instead of green.LII

However, he replied at hazard, with A modest confidence and calm assurance, Which lent his learned lucubrations pith, And pass'd for arguments of good endurance. That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith (Who at sixteen translated "Hercules Furens" Into as furious English), with her best look, Set down his sayings in her common-place book.LIII

Juan knew several languages--as well He might--and brought them up with skill, in time To save his fame with each accomplish'd belle, Who still regretted that he did not rhyme. There wanted but this requisite to swell His qualities (with them) into sublime: Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss M{ae}via Mannish, Both long'd extremely to be sung in Spanish.LIV

However, he did pretty well, and was Admitted as an aspirant to allThe coteries, and, as in Banquo's glass, At great assemblies or in parties small, He saw ten thousand living authors pass, That being about their average numeral; Also the eighty "greatest living poets," As every paltry magazine can show it's .LV

In twice five years the "greatest living poet," Like to the champion in the fisty ring, Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it, Although 'tis an imaginary thing, Even I--albeit I'm sure I did not know it, Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king-- Was reckon'd, a considerable time, The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.LVI

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seem Cain: "La Belle Alliance" of dunces down at zero, Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again, But I will fall at least as fell my hero; Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign; Or to some lonely isle of jailors go, With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.LVII

Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell Before and after; but now grown more holy, The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble With poets almost clergymen, or wholly; And Pegasus has a psalmodic amble Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, A modern Ancient Pistol--"by the hilts!"LVIII

Still he excels that artificial hard Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vine Yields him but vinegar for his reward-- That neutralis'd dull Dorus of the Nine; That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard; That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line: Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest.LIX

Then there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say, Sets up for being a sort of moral me ; He'll find it rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth'd Bœotian "Savage Landor" Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.LX

John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Just as he really promis'd something great, If not intelligible, without Greek Contriv'd to talk about the gods of late, Much as they might have been suppos'd to speak. Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate; 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.LXI

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders To that which none will gain--or none will know The conqueror at least; who, ere Time renders His last award, will have the long grass grow Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. If I might augur, I should rate but low Their chances; they're too numerous, like the thirty Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals wax'd but dirty.LXII

This is the literary lower empire, Where the pr{ae}torian bands take up the matter; A "dreadful trade," like his who "gathers samphire," The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire, Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, And show them what an intellectual war is.LXIII

I think I know a trick or two, would turn Their flanks; but it is hardly worth my while, With such small gear to give myself concern: Indeed I've not the necessary bile; My natural temper's really aught but stern, And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile; And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy, And glides away, assur'd she never hurts ye.LXIV

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril Amongst live poets and blue ladies, pass'd With some small profit through that field so sterile, Being tir'd in time, and, neither least nor last, Left it before he had been treated very ill; And henceforth found himself more gaily class'd Amongst the higher spirits of the day, The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.LXV

His morns he pass'd in business--which dissected, Was, like all business, a laborious nothing That leads to lassitude, the most infected And Centaur-Nessus garb of mortal clothing, And on our sofas makes us lie dejected, And talk in tender horrors of our loathing All kinds of toil, save for our country's good-- Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should.LXVI

His afternoons he pass'd in visits, luncheons, Lounging and boxing; and the twilight hour In riding round those vegetable puncheons Call'd "Parks," where there is neither fruit nor flower Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings; But after all it is the only "bower" (In Moore's phrase) where the fashionable fair Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.LXVII

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world! Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl'd Like harness'd meteors; then along the floor Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirl'd; Then roll the brazen thunders of the door, Which opens to the thousand happy few An earthly Paradise of "Or Molu."LXVIII

There stands the noble hostess, nor shall sink With the three-thousandth curtsy; there the waltz, The only dance which teaches girls to think, Makes one in love even with its very faults. Saloon, room, hall, o'erflow beyond their brink, And long the latest of arrivals halts, 'Midst royal dukes and dames condemn'd to climb, And gain an inch of staircase at a time.LXIX

Thrice happy he who, after a survey Of the good company, can win a corner, A door that's in or boudoir out of the way, Where he may fix himself like small "Jack Horner," And let the Babel round run as it may, And look on as a mourner, or a scorner, Or an approver, or a mere spectator, Yawning a little as the night grows later.LXX

But this won't do, save by and by; and he Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share Must steer with care through all that glittering sea Of gems and plumes and pearls and silks, to where He deems it is his proper place to be; Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air, Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill, Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.LXXI

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride, Let him take care that that which he pursues Is not at once too palpably descried. Full many an eager gentleman oft rues His haste; impatience is a blundering guide Amongst a people famous for reflection, Who like to play the fool with circumspection.LXXII

But, if you can contrive, get next at supper; Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle: Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle, Which sits for ever upon Memory's crupper, The ghost of vanish'd pleasures once in vogue! Ill Can tender souls relate the rise and fall Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.LXXIII

But these precautionary hints can touch Only the common run, who must pursue, And watch and ward; whose plans a word too much Or little overturns; and not the few Or many (for the number's sometimes such) Whom a good mien, especially if new, Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense or nonsense, Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.LXXIV

Our hero, as a hero young and handsome, Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger, Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom Before he can escape from so much danger As will environ a conspicuous man. Some Talk about poetry, and "rack and manger," And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble-- I wish they knew the life of a young noble.LXXV

They are young, but know not youth--it is anticipated; Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou; Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated; Their cash comes from , their wealth goes to a Jew; Both senates see their nightly votes participated Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew; And having voted, din'd, drunk, gam'd and whor'd, The family vault receives another lord.LXXVI

"Where is the World," cries Young, "at eighty ? Where The World in which a man was born?" Alas! Where is the world of eight years past? 'Twas there -- I look for it--'tis gone, a Globe of Glass! Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gaz'd on, ere A silent change dissolves the glittering mass. Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings, And dandies--all are gone on the wind's wings.LXXVII

Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows: Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell: Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those Who bound the Bar or Senate in their spell? Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes? And where the Daughter, whom the Isles lov'd well? Where are those martyr'd saints the Five per Cents? And where--oh, where the devil are the Rents?LXXVIII

Where's Brummell? Dish'd. Where's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled. Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George the Third? Where is his will? (That's not so soon unriddled.) And where is "Fum" the Fourth, our "royal bird"? Gone down, it seems, to Scotland to be fiddled Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard: "Caw me, caw thee"--for six months hath been hatching This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.LXXIX

Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That? The Honourable Mistresses and Misses? Some laid aside like an old Opera hat, Married, unmarried, and remarried (this is An evolution oft perform'd of late). Where are the Dublin shouts--and London hisses? Where are the Grenvilles? Turn'd as usual. Where My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.LXXX

Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses? Divorc'd or doing thereanent. Ye annals So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is, Thou Morning Post, sole record of the panels Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies Of fashion, say what streams now fill those channels? Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent, Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.LXXXI

Some who once set their caps at cautious dukes, Have taken up at length with younger brothers: Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks: Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers: Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks: In short, the list of alterations bothers. There's little strange in this, but something strange is The unusual quickness of these common changes.LXXXII

Talk not of seventy years as age! in seven I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to The humblest individuals under heaven, Than might suffice a moderate century through. I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new: Nought's permanent among the human race, Except the Whigs not getting into place.LXXXIII

I have seen Napoleon, who seem'd quite a Jupiter, Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke (No matter which) turn politician stupider, If that can well be, than his wooden look. But it is time that I should hoist my "blue Peter," And sail for a new theme: I have seen--and shook To see it--the King hiss'd, and then caress'd; But don't pretend to settle which was best.LXXXIV

I have seen the Landholders without a rap-- I have seen Joanna Southcote--I have seen The House of Commons turn'd to a taxtrap-- I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen-- I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's cap-- I have seen a Congress doing all that's mean-- I have seen some nations, like o'erloaded asses, Kick off their burthens--meaning the high classes.LXXXV

I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and Interminable-- not eternal --speakers-- I have seen the funds at war with house and land-- I have seen the country gentlemen turn squeakers-- I have seen the people ridden o'er like sand By slaves on horseback--I have seen malt liquors Exchang'd for "thin potations" by John Bull-- I have seen John half detect himself a fool.LXXXVI

But "carpe diem," Juan, "carpe, carpe!" To-morrow sees another race as gay And transient, and devour'd by the same harpy. "Life's a poor player"--then "play out the play, Ye villains!" and above all keep a sharp eye Much less on what you do than what you say: Be hypocritical, be cautious, be Not what you seem , but always what you see .LXXXVII

But how shall I relate in other cantos Of what befell our hero in the land, Which 'tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as A moral country? But I hold my hand-- For I disdain to write an Atalantis; But 'tis as well at once to understand, You are not a moral people, and you know it, Without the aid of too sincere a poet.LXXXVIII

What Juan saw and underwent shall beMy topic, with of course the due restriction Which is requir'd by proper courtesy; And recollect the work is only fiction, And that I sing of neither mine nor me, Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction, Will hint allusions never meant . Ne'er doubt This --when I speak, I don't hint , but speak out .LXXXIX

Whether he married with the third or fourth Offspring of some sage husband-hunting countess, Or whether with some virgin of more worth (I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties), He took to regularly peopling Earth, Of which your lawful, awful wedlock fount is-- Or whether he was taken in for damages, For being too excursive in his homages--XC

Is yet within the unread events of time. Thus far, go forth, thou Lay, which I will back Against the same given quantity of rhyme, For being as much the subject of attack As ever yet was any work sublime, By those who love to say that white is black. So much the better!--I may stand alone, But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.

The Cenci : A Tragedy In Five Acts

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Count Francesco Cenci.Giacomo, his Son.Bernardo, his Son.Cardinal Camillo.Orsino, a Prelate.Savella, the Pope's Legate.Olimpio, Assassin.Marzio, Assassin.Andrea, Servant to Cenci.Nobles, Judges, Guards, Servants.Lucretia, Wife of Cenci, and Step-mother of his children.Beatrice, his Daughter.

The Scene lies principally in Rome, but changes during the Fourth Act to Petrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.Time. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

Camillo.That matter of the murder is hushed upIf you consent to yield his HolinessYour fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-It needed all my interest in the conclaveTo bend him to this point: he said that youBought perilous impunity with your gold;That crimes like yours if once or twice compoundedEnriched the Church, and respited from hellAn erring soul which might repent and live:-But that the glory and the interestOf the high throne he fills, little consistWith making it a daily mart of guiltAs manifold and hideous as the deedsWhich you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

Cenci.The third of my possessions-let it go!Ay, I once heard the nephew of the PopeHad sent his architect to view the ground,Meaning to build a villa on my vinesThe next time I compounded with his uncle:I little thought he should outwit me so!Henceforth no witness-not the lamp-shall seeThat which the vassal threatened to divulgeWhose throat is choked with dust for his reward.The deed he saw could not have rated higherThan his most worthless life:-it angers me!Respited me from Hell!-So may the DevilRespite their souls from Heaven. No doubt Pope Clement,And his most charitable nephews, prayThat the Apostle Peter and the SaintsWill grant for their sake that I long enjoyStrength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of daysWherein to act the deeds which are the stewardsOf their revenue.-But much yet remainsTo which they show no title.

Camillo.Oh, Count Cenci!So much that thou mightst honourably liveAnd reconcile thyself with thine own heartAnd with thy God, and with the offended world.How hideously look deeds of lust and bloodThrough those snow white and venerable hairs!-Your children should be sitting round you now,But that you fear to read upon their looksThe shame and misery you have written there.Where is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter?Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things elseBeauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you.Why is she barred from all societyBut her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?Talk with me, Count,-you know I mean you wellI stood beside your dark and fiery youthWatching its bold and bad career, as menWatch meteors, but it vanished not-I markedYour desperate and remorseless manhood; nowDo I behold you in dishonoured ageCharged with a thousand unrepented crimes.Yet I have ever hoped you would amend,And in that hope have saved your life three times.

Cenci.For which Aldobrandino owes you nowMy fief beyond the Pincian.-Cardinal,One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,And so we shall converse with less restraint.A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter-He was accustomed to frequent my house;So the next day his wife and daughter cameAnd asked if I had seen him; and I smiled:I think they never saw him any more.

Camillo.Thou execrable man, beware!-

Cenci.Of thee?Nay this is idle:-We should know each other.As to my character for what men call crimeSeeing I please my senses as I list,And vindicate that right with force or guile,It is a public matter, and I care notIf I discuss it with you. I may speakAlike to you and my own conscious heart-For you give out that you have half reformed me,Therefore strong vanity will keep you silentIf fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.All men delight in sensual luxury,All men enjoy revenge; and most exultOver the tortures they can never feel-Flattering their secret peace with others' pain.But I delight in nothing else. I loveThe sight of agony, and the sense of joy,When this shall be another's, and that mine.And I have no remorse and little fear,Which are, I think, the checks of other men.This mood has grown upon me, until nowAny design my captious fancy makesThe picture of its wish, and it forms noneBut such as men like you would start to know,Is as my natural food and rest debarredUntil it be accomplished.

Camillo.Art thou notMost miserable?

Cenci.Why, miserable?-No.-I am what your theologians callHardened;-which they must be in impudence,So to revile a man's peculiar taste.True, I was happier than I am, while yetManhood remained to act the thing I thought;While lust was sweeter than revenge; and nowInvention palls:-Ay, we must all grow old-And but that there yet remains a deed to actWhose horror might make sharp an appetiteDuller than mine-I'd do-I know not what.When I was young I thought of nothing elseBut pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets:Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees,And I grew tired:-yet, till I killed a foe,And heard his groans, and heard his children's groans,Knew I not what delight was else on earth,Which now delights me little. I the ratherLook on such pangs as terror ill conceals,The dry fixed eyeball; the pale quivering lip,Which tell me that the spirit weeps withinTears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.I rarely kill the body, which preserves,Like a strong prison, the soul within my power,Wherein I feed it with the breath of fearFor hourly pain.

Camillo.Hell's most abandoned fiendDid never, in the drunkenness of guilt,Speak to his heart as now you speak to me;I thank my God that I believe you not.

Enter Andrea.

Andrea.My Lord, a gentleman from SalamancaWould speak with you.

Cenci.Bid him attend me inThe grand saloon.

[Exit Andrea.

Camillo.Farewell; and I will prayAlmighty God that thy false, impious wordsTempt not his spirit to abandon thee.

[Exit Camillo.

Cenci.The third of my possessions! I must useClose husbandry, or gold, the old man's sword,Falls from my withered hand. But yesterdayThere came an order from the Pope to makeFourfold provision for my cursèd sons;Whom I had sent from Rome to Salamanca,Hoping some accident might cut them off;And meaning if I could to starve them there.I pray thee, God, send some quick death upon them!Bernardo and my wife could not be worseIf dead and damned:-then, as to Beatrice- [Looking around him suspiciously.

I think they cannot hear me at that door;What if they should? And yet I need not speakThough the heart triumphs with itself in words.O, thou most silent air, that shalt not hearWhat now I think! Thou, pavement, which I treadTowards her chamber,-let your echoes talkOf my imperious step scorning surprise,But not of my intent!-Andrea!

[Enter Andrea.

Andrea.My lord?

Cenci.Bid Beatrice attend me in her chamberThis evening:-no, at midnight and alone.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.-A Garden of the Cenci Palace. EnterBeatrice and Orsino, as in conversation.

Beatrice.Pervert not truth,Orsino. You remember where we heldThat conversation;-nay, we see the spotEven from this cypress;-two long years are pastSince, on an April midnight, underneathThe moonlight ruins of mount Palatine,I did confess to you my secret mind.

Orsino.You said you loved me then.

Beatrice.You are a Priest,Speak to me not of love.

Orsino.I may obtainThe dispensation of the Pope to marry.Because I am a Priest do you believeYour image, as the hunter some struck deer,Follows me not whether I wake or sleep?

Beatrice.As I have said, speak to me not of love;Had you a dispensation I have not;Nor will I leave this home of miseryWhilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle ladyTo whom I owe life, and these virtuous thoughts,Must suffer what I still have strength to share.Alas, Orsino! All the love that onceI felt for you, is turned to bitter pain.Ours was a youthful contract, which you firstBroke, by assuming vows no Pope will loose.And thus I love you still, but holily,Even as a sister or a spirit might;And so I swear a cold fidelity.And it is well perhaps we shall not marry.You have a sly, equivocating veinThat suits me not.-Ah, wretched that I am!Where shall I turn? Even now you look on meAs you were not my friend, and as if youDiscovered that I thought so, with false smilesMaking my true suspicion seem your wrong.Ah, no! forgive me; sorrow makes me seemSterner than else my nature might have been;I have a weight of melancholy thoughts,And they forbode,-but what can they forbodeWorse than I now endure?

Orsino.All will be well.Is the petition yet prepared? You knowMy zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice;Doubt not but I will use my utmost skillSo that the Pope attend to your complaint.

Beatrice.Your zeal for all I wish;-Ah me, you are cold!Your utmost skill . . . speak but one word . . . (aside)Alas!Weak and deserted creature that I am,Here I stand bickering with my only friend! [To Orsino.

This night my father gives a sumptuous feast,Orsino; he has heard some happy newsFrom Salamanca, from my brothers there,And with this outward show of love he mocksHis inward hate. 'Tis bold hypocrisy,For he would gladlier celebrate their deaths,Which I have heard him pray for on his knees:Great God! that such a father should be mine!But there is mighty preparation made,And all our kin, the Cenci, will be there,And all the chief nobility of Rome.And he has bidden me and my pale MotherAttire ourselves in festival array.Poor lady! She expects some happy changeIn his dark spirit from this act; I none.At supper I will give you the petition:Till when-farewell.

Orsino.Farewell. (Exit Beatrice.)I know the PopeWill ne'er absolve me from my priestly vowBut by absolving me from the revenueOf many a wealthy see; and, Beatrice,I think to win thee at an easier rate.Nor shall he read her eloquent petition:He might bestow her on some poor relationOf his sixth cousin, as he did her sister,And I should be debarred from all access.Then as to what she suffers from her father,In all this there is much exaggeration:-Old men are testy and will have their way;A man may stab his enemy, or his vassal,And live a free life as to wine or women,And with a peevish temper may returnTo a dull home, and rate his wife and children;Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny.I shall be well content if on my conscienceThere rest no heavier sin than what they sufferFrom the devices of my love-a netFrom which she shall escape not. Yet I fearHer subtle mind, her awe-inspiring gaze,Whose beams anatomize me nerve by nerveAnd lay me bare, and make me blush to seeMy hidden thoughts.-Ah, no! A friendless girlWho clings to me, as to her only hope:-I were a fool, not less than if a pantherWere panic-stricken by the antelope's eye,If she escape me.

Cenci.Welcome, my friends and kinsmen; welcome ye,Princes and Cardinals, pillars of the church,Whose presence honours our festivity.I have too long lived like an anchorite,And in my absence from your merry meetingsAn evil word is gone abroad of me;But I do hope that you, my noble friends,When you have shared the entertainment here,And heard the pious cause for which 'tis given,And we have pledged a health or two together,Will think me flesh and blood as well as you;Sinful indeed, for Adam made all so,But tender-hearted, meek and pitiful.

First Guest.In truth, my Lord, you seem too light of heart,Too sprightly and companionable a man,To act the deeds that rumour pins on you. (To his Companion.)

I never saw such blithe and open cheerIn any eye!

Second Guest.Some most desired event,In which we all demand a common joy,Has brought us hither; let us hear it, Count.

Cenci.It is indeed a most desired event.If, when a parent from a parent's heartLifts from this earth to the great Father of allA prayer, both when he lays him down to sleep,And when he rises up from dreaming it;One supplication, one desire, one hope,That he would grant a wish for his two sons,Even all that he demands in their regard-And suddenly beyond his dearest hopeIt is accomplished, he should then rejoice,And call his friends and kinsmen to a feast,And task their love to grace his merriment,-Then honour me thus far-for I am he.

Beatrice.Ah! My blood runs cold.I fear that wicked laughter round his eye,Which wrinkles up the skin even to the hair.

Cenci.Here are the letters brought from Salamanca;Beatrice, read them to your mother. God!I thank thee! In one night didst thou perform,By ways inscrutable, the thing I sought.My disobedient and rebellious sonsAre dead!-Why, dead!-What means this change of cheer?You hear me not, I tell you they are dead;And they will need no food or raiment more:The tapers that did light them the dark wayAre their last cost. The Pope, I think, will notExpect I should maintain them in their coffins.Rejoice with me-my heart is wondrous glad.

[Lucretia sinks, half fainting; Beatrice supports her.

Beatrice.It is not true!-Dear lady, pray look up.Had it been true, there is a God in Heaven,He would not live to boast of such a boon.Unnatural man, thou knowest that it is false.

Cenci.Ay, as the word of God; whom here I callTo witness that I speak the sober truth;-And whose most favouring Providence was shownEven in the manner of their deaths. For RoccoWas kneeling at the mass, with sixteen others,When the church fell and crushed him to a mummy,The rest escaped unhurt. CristofanoWas stabbed in error by a jealous man,Whilst she he loved was sleeping with his rival;All in the self-same hour of the same night;Which shows that Heaven has special care of me.I beg those friends who love me, that they markThe day a feast upon their calendars.It was the twenty-seventh of December:Ay, read the letters if you doubt my oath.

[The Assembly appears confused; several of the guests rise.

First Guest.Oh, horrible! I will depart-

Second Guest.And I.-

Third Guest.No, stay!I do believe it is some jest; though faith!'Tis mocking us somewhat too solemnly.I think his son has married the Infanta,Or found a mine of gold in El Dorado;'Tis but to season some such news; stay, stay!I see 'tis only raillery by his smile.

Cenci(filling a bowl of wine, and lifting it up).Oh, thou bright wine whose purple splendour leapsAnd bubbles gaily in this golden bowlUnder the lamplight, as my spirits do,To hear the death of my accursèd sons!Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood,Then would I taste thee like a sacrament,And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell,Who, if a father's curses, as men say,Climb with swift wings after their children's souls,And drag them from the very throne of Heaven,Now triumphs in my triumph!-But thou artSuperfluous; I have drunken deep of joy,And I will taste no other wine to-night.Here, Andrea! Bear the bowl around.

A Guest(rising).Thou wretch!Will none among this noble companyCheck the abandoned villain?

Camillo.For God's sakeLet me dismiss the guests! You are insane,Some ill will come of this.

Second Guest.Seize, silence him!

First Guest.I will!

Third Guest.And I!

Cenci(addressing those who rise with a threatening gesture).Who moves? Who speaks?

(turning to the Company)

'tis nothing Enjoy yourselves.-Beware! For my revengeIs as the sealed commission of a kingThat kills, and none dare name the murderer.

[The Banquet is broken up; several of the Guests are departing.

Beatrice.I do entreat you, go not, noble guests;What, although tyranny and impious hateStand sheltered by a father's hoary hair?What, if 'tis he who clothed us in these limbsWho tortures them, and triumphs? What, if we,The desolate and the dead, were his own flesh,His children and his wife, whom he is boundTo love and shelter? Shall we therefore findNo refuge in this merciless wide world?O think what deep wrongs must have blotted outFirst love, then reverence in a child's prone mind,Till it thus vanquish shame and fear! O think!I have borne much, and kissed the sacred handWhich crushed us to the earth, and thought its strokeWas perhaps some paternal chastisement!Have excused much, doubted; and when no doubtRemained, have sought by patience, love, and tearsTo soften him, and when this could not beI have knelt down through the long sleepless nightsAnd lifted up to God, the Father of all,Passionate prayers: and when these were not heardI have still borne,-until I meet you here,Princes and kinsmen, at this hideous feastGiven at my brothers' deaths. Two yet remain,His wife remains and I, whom if ye save not,Ye may soon share such merriment againAs fathers make over their children's graves.O Prince Colonna, thou art our near kinsman,Cardinal, thou art the Pope's chamberlain,Camillo, thou art chief justiciary,Take us away!

Cenci.(He has been conversing with Camillo during the first part of Beatrice's speech; he hears the conclusion, and now advances.)I hope my good friends hereWill think of their own daughters-or perhapsOf their own throats-before they lend an earTo this wild girl.

Beatrice(not noticing the words of Cenci).Dare no one look on me?None answer? Can one tyrant overbearThe sense of many best and wisest men?Or is it that I sue not in some formOf scrupulous law, that ye deny my suit?O God! That I were buried with my brothers!And that the flowers of this departed springWere fading on my grave! And that my fatherWere celebrating now one feast for all!

Camillo.A bitter wish for one so young and gentle;Can we do nothing?

Colonna.Nothing that I see.Count Cenci were a dangerous enemy:Yet I would second any one.

A Cardinal.And I.

Cenci.Retire to your chamber, insolent girl!

Beatrice.Retire thou, impious man! Ay, hide thyselfWhere never eye can look upon thee more!Wouldst thou have honour and obedienceWho art a torturer? Father, never dreamThough thou mayst overbear this company,But ill must come of ill.-Frown not on me!Haste, hide thyself, lest with avenging looksMy brothers' ghosts should hunt thee from thy seat!Cover thy face from every living eye,And start if thou but hear a human step:Seek out some dark and silent corner, there,Bow thy white head before offended God,And we will kneel around, and ferventlyPray that he pity both ourselves and thee.

Cenci.

My friends, I do lament this insane girlHas spoilt the mirth of our festivity.Good night, farewell; I will not make you longerSpectators of our dull domestic quarrels.Another time.-

Here, Andrea,Fill up this goblet with Greek wine. I saidI would not drink this evening; but I must;For, strange to say, I feel my spirits failWith thinking what I have decreed to do.- [Drinking the wine.

Be thou the resolution of quick youthWithin my veins, and manhood's purpose stern,And age's firm, cold, subtle villainy;As if thou wert indeed my children's bloodWhich I did thirst to drink! The charm works well;It must be done; it shall be done, I swear!

Lucretia.Weep not, my gentle boy; he struck but meWho have borne deeper wrongs. In truth, if heHad killed me, he had done a kinder deed.O God, Almighty, do Thou look upon us,We have no other friend but only Thee!Yet weep not; though I love you as my own,I am not your true mother.

Bernardo.O more, more,Than ever mother was to any child,That have you been to me! Had he not beenMy father, do you think that I should weep!

Lucretia.Alas! Poor boy, what else couldst thou have done?

Enter Beatrice.

Beatrice(in a hurried voice).Did he pass this way? Have you seen him, brother?Ah, no! that is his step upon the stairs;'Tis nearer now; his hand is on the door;Mother, if I to thee have ever beenA duteous child, now save me! Thou, great God,Whose image upon earth a father is,Dost Thou indeed abandon me? He comes;The door is opening now; I see his face;He frowns on others, but he smiles on me,Even as he did after the feast last night. Enter a Servant.

So, daughter, our last hope has failed; Ah me!How pale you look; you tremble, and you standWrapped in some fixed and fearful meditation,As if one thought were over strong for you:Your eyes have a chill glare; O, dearest child!Are you gone mad? If not, pray speak to me.

Beatrice.You see I am not mad: I speak to you.

Lucretia.You talked of something that your father didAfter that dreadful feast? Could it be worseThan when he smiled, and cried, 'My sons are dead!'And every one looked in his neighbour's faceTo see if others were as white as he?At the first word he spoke I felt the bloodRush to my heart, and fell into a trance;And when it passed I sat all weak and wild;Whilst you alone stood up, and with strong wordsChecked his unnatural pride; and I could seeThe devil was rebuked that lives in him.Until this hour thus have you ever stoodBetween us and your father's moody wrathLike a protecting presence: your firm mindHas been our only refuge and defence:What can have thus subdued it? What can nowHave given you that cold melancholy look,Succeeding to your unaccustomed fear?

Beatrice.What is it that you say? I was just thinking'Twere better not to struggle any more.Men, like my father, have been dark and bloody,Yet never-Oh! Before worse comes of it'Twere wise to die: it ends in that at last.

Lucretia.Oh, talk not so, dear child! Tell me at onceWhat did your father do or say to you?He stayed not after that accursèd feastOne moment in your chamber.-Speak to me.

Bernardo.Oh, sister, sister, prithee, speak to us!

Beatrice(speaking very slowly with a forced calmness).

It was one word, Mother, one little word;One look, one smile. (Wildly.)Oh! He has trampled meUnder his feet, and made the blood stream downMy pallid cheeks. And he has given us allDitch-water, and the fever-stricken fleshOf buffaloes, and bade us eat or starve,And we have eaten.-He has made me lookOn my beloved Bernardo, when the rustOf heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs,And I have never yet despaired-but now!What could I say?

[Recovering herself.

Ah, no! 'tis nothing new.The sufferings we all share have made me wild:He only struck and cursed me as he passed;He said, he looked, he did;-nothing at allBeyond his wont, yet it disordered me.Alas! I am forgetful of my duty,I should preserve my senses for your sake.

Lucretia.Nay, Beatrice; have courage, my sweet girl,If any one despairs it should be IWho loved him once, and now must live with himTill God in pity call for him or me.For you may, like your sister, find some husband,And smile, years hence, with children round your knees;Whilst I, then dead, and all this hideous coilShall be remembered only as a dream.

Beatrice.Talk not to me, dear lady, of a husband.Did you not nurse me when my mother died?Did you not shield me and that dearest boy?And had we any other friend but youIn infancy, with gentle words and looks,To win our father not to murder us?And shall I now desert you? May the ghostOf my dead Mother plead against my soulIf I abandon her who filled the placeShe left, with more, even, than a mother's love!

Bernardo.And I am of my sister's mind. IndeedI would not leave you in this wretchedness,Even though the Pope should make me free to liveIn some blithe place, like others of my age,With sports, and delicate food, and the fresh air.Oh, never think that I will leave you, Mother!

Lucretia.My dear, dear children!

Enter Cenci, suddenly.

Cenci.

What, Beatrice here!Come hither!

[She shrinks back, and covers her face.

Nay, hide not your face, 'tis fair;Look up! Why, yesternight you dared to lookWith disobedient insolence upon me,Bending a stern and an inquiring browOn what I meant; whilst I then sought to hideThat which I came to tell you-but in vain.

Cenci.Then it was I whose inarticulate wordsFell from my lips, and who with tottering stepsFled from your presence, as you now from mine.Stay, I command you-from this day and hourNever again, I think, with fearless eye,And brow superior, and unaltered cheek,And that lip made for tenderness or scorn,Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind;Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber!Thou too, loathed image of thy cursèd mother, [To Bernardo.

So much has passed between us as must makeMe bold, her fearful.-'Tis an awful thingTo touch such mischief as I now conceive:So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,And try the chill stream with their feet; once in . . .How the delighted spirit pants for joy!

Cenci.Nor you perhaps?Nor that young imp, whom you have taught by roteParricide with his alphabet? Nor Giacomo?Nor those two most unnatural sons, who stirredEnmity up against me with the Pope?Whom in one night merciful God cut off:Innocent lambs! They thought not any ill.You were not here conspiring? You said nothingOf how I might be dungeoned as a madman;Or be condemned to death for some offence,And you would be the witnesses?-This failing,How just it were to hire assassins, orPut sudden poison in my evening drink?Or smother me when overcome by wine?Seeing we had no other judge but God,And He had sentenced me, and there were noneBut you to be the executionersOf His decree enregistered in Heaven?Oh, no! You said not this?

Lucretia.So help me God,I never thought the things you charge me with!

Cenci.If you dare speak that wicked lie againI'll kill you. What! It was not by your counselThat Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?You did not hope to stir some enemiesAgainst me, and escape, and laugh to scornWhat every nerve of you now trembles at?You judged that men were bolder than they are;Few dare to stand between their grave and me.

Lucretia.Look not so dreadfully! By my salvationI knew not aught that Beatrice designed;Nor do I think she designed any thingUntil she heard you talk of her dead brothers.

Cenci.Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this!But I will take you where you may persuadeThe stones you tread on to deliver you:For men shall there be none but those who dareAll things-not question that which I command.On Wednesday next I shall set out: you knowThat savage rock, the Castle of Petrella:'Tis safely walled, and moated round about:Its dungeons underground, and its thick towersNever told tales; though they have heard and seenWhat might make dumb things speak.-Why do you linger?Make speediest preparation for the journey! [Exit Lucretia.

The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hearA busy stir of men about the streets;I see the bright sky through the window panes:It is a garish, broad, and peering day;Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears,And every little corner, nook, and holeIs penetrated with the insolent light.Come darkness! Yet, what is the day to me?And wherefore should I wish for night, who doA deed which shall confound both night and day?'Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mistOf horror: if there be a sun in heavenShe shall not dare to look upon its beams;Nor feel its warmth. Let her then wish for night;The act I think shall soon extinguish allFor me: I bear a darker deadlier gloomThan the earth's shade, or interlunar air,Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,In which I walk secure and unbeheldTowards my purpose.-Would that it were done!

[Exit.

Scene II.-A Chamber in the Vatican. Enter Camillo and Giacomo, in conversation.

Camillo.There is an obsolete and doubtful lawBy which you might obtain a bare provisionOf food and clothing-

Giacomo.Nothing more? Alas!Bare must be the provision which strict lawAwards, and agèd, sullen avarice pays.Why did my father not apprentice meTo some mechanic trade? I should have thenBeen trained in no highborn necessitiesWhich I could meet not by my daily toil.The eldest son of a rich noblemanIs heir to all his incapacities;He has wide wants, and narrow powers. If you,Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at onceFrom thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food,An hundred servants, and six palaces,To that which nature doth indeed require?-

Camillo.Nay, there is reason in your plea; 'twere hard.

Giacomo.'Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but IHave a dear wife, a lady of high birth,Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my fatherWithout a bond or witness to the deed:And children, who inherit her fine senses,The fairest creatures in this breathing world;And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,Do you not think the Pope would interposeAnd stretch authority beyond the law?

Camillo.Though your peculiar case is hard, I knowThe Pope will not divert the course of law.After that impious feast the other nightI spoke with him, and urged him then to checkYour father's cruel hand; he frowned and said,'Children are disobedient, and they stingTheir fathers' hearts to madness and despair,Requiting years of care with contumely.I pity the Count Cenci from my heart;His outraged love perhaps awakened hate,And thus he is exasperated to ill.In the great war between the old and youngI, who have white hairs and a tottering body,Will keep at least blameless neutrality.' Enter Orsino.

You, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words.

Orsino.What words?

Giacomo.Alas, repeat them not again!There then is no redress for me, at leastNone but that which I may achieve myself,Since I am driven to the brink.-But, say,My innocent sister and my only brotherAre dying underneath my father's eye.The memorable torturers of this land,Galeaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin,Never inflicted on the meanest slaveWhat these endure; shall they have no protection?

Camillo.Why, if they would petition to the PopeI see not how he could refuse it-yetHe holds it of most dangerous exampleIn aught to weaken the paternal power,Being, as 'twere, the shadow of his own.I pray you now excuse me. I have businessThat will not bear delay.

[Exit Camillo.

Giacomo.But you, Orsino,Have the petition: wherefore not present it?

Orsino.I have presented it, and backed it withMy earnest prayers, and urgent interest;It was returned unanswered. I doubt notBut that the strange and execrable deedsAlleged in it-in truth they might well baffleAny belief-have turned the Pope's displeasureUpon the accusers from the criminal:So I should guess from what Camillo said.

Giacomo.My friend, that palace-walking devil GoldHas whispered silence to his Holiness:And we are left, as scorpions ringed with fire.What should we do but strike ourselves to death?For he who is our murderous persecutorIs shielded by a father's holy name,Or I would-

[Stops abruptly.

Orsino.What? Fear not to speak your thought.Words are but holy as the deeds they cover:A priest who has forsworn the God he serves;A judge who makes Truth weep at his decree;A friend who should weave counsel, as I now,But as the mantle of some selfish guile;A father who is all a tyrant seems,Were the profaner for his sacred name.

Giacomo.Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brainFeigns often what it would not; and we trustImagination with such phantasiesAs the tongue dares not fashion into words,Which have no words, their horror makes them dimTo the mind's eye.-My heart denies itselfTo think what you demand.

Orsino.But a friend's bosomIs as the inmost cave of our own mindWhere we sit shut from the wide gaze of day,And from the all-communicating air.You look what I suspected-

Giacomo.Spare me now!I am as one lost in a midnight wood,Who dares not ask some harmless passengerThe path across the wilderness, lest he,As my thoughts are, should be-a murderer.I know you are my friend, and all I dareSpeak to my soul that will I trust with thee.But now my heart is heavy, and would takeLone counsel from a night of sleepless care.Pardon me, that I say farewell-farewell!I would that to my own suspected selfI could address a word so full of peace.

Orsino.

Farewell!-Be your thoughts better or more bold. [Exit Giacomo.

I had disposed the Cardinal CamilloTo feed his hope with cold encouragement:It fortunately serves my close designsThat 'tis a trick of this same familyTo analyse their own and other minds.Such self-anatomy shall teach the willDangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers,Knowing what must be thought, and may be done,Into the depth of darkest purposes:So Cenci fell into the pit; even I,Since Beatrice unveiled me to myself,And made me shrink from what I cannot shun,Show a poor figure to my own esteem,To which I grow half reconciled. I'll doAs little mischief as I can; that thoughtShall fee the accuser conscience.

(After a pause.)

Now what harmIf Cenci should be murdered?-Yet, if murdered,Wherefore by me? And what if I could takeThe profit, yet omit the sin and perilIn such an action? Of all earthly thingsI fear a man whose blows outspeed his words;And such is Cenci: and while Cenci livesHis daughter's dowry were a secret graveIf a priest wins her.-Oh, fair Beatrice!Would that I loved thee not, or loving theeCould but despise danger and gold and allThat frowns between my wish and its effect,Or smiles beyond it! There is no escape . . .Her bright form kneels beside me at the altar,And follows me to the resort of men,And fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams,So when I wake my blood seems liquid fire;And if I strike my damp and dizzy headMy hot palm scorches it: her very name,But spoken by a stranger, makes my heartSicken and pant; and thus unprofitablyI clasp the phantom of unfelt delightsTill weak imagination half possessesThe self-created shadow. Yet much longerWill I not nurse this life of feverous hours:From the unravelled hopes of GiacomoI must work out my own dear purposes.I see, as from a tower, the end of all:Her father dead; her brother bound to meBy a dark secret, surer than the grave;Her mother scared and unexpostulatingFrom the dread manner of her wish achieved:And she!-Once more take courage, my faint heart;What dares a friendless maiden matched with thee?I have such foresight as assures success:Some unbeheld divinity doth ever,When dread events are near, stir up men's mindsTo black suggestions; and he prospers best,Not who becomes the instrument of ill,But who can flatter the dark spirit, that makesIts empire and its prey of other heartsTill it become his slave . . . as I will do.

[Exit.

END OF THE SECOND ACT.

ACT IIIScene I.-An Apartment in the Cenci Palace. Lucretia, to her enter Beatrice.

Beatrice.(She enters staggering, and speaks wildly.)Reach me that handkerchief!-My brain is hurt;My eyes are full of blood; just wipe them for me . . .I see but indistinctly . . .

Beatrice.How comes this hair undone?Its wandering strings must be what blind me so,And yet I tied it fast.-O, horrible!The pavement sinks under my feet! The wallsSpin round! I see a woman weeping there,And standing calm and motionless, whilst ISlide giddily as the world reels. . . . My God!The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood!The sunshine on the floor is black! The airIs changed to vapours such as the dead breatheIn charnel pits! Pah! I am choked! There creepsA clinging, black, contaminating mistAbout me . . . 'tis substantial, heavy, thick,I cannot pluck it from me, for it gluesMy fingers and my limbs to one another,And eats into my sinews, and dissolvesMy flesh to a pollution, poisoningThe subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life!My God! I never knew what the mad feltBefore; for I am mad beyond all doubt!(More wildly.)No, I am dead! These putrefying limbsShut round and sepulchre the panting soulWhich would burst forth into the wandering air! (A pause.)

What hideous thought was that I had even now?'Tis gone; and yet its burthen remains hereO'er these dull eyes . . . upon this weary heart!O, world! O, life! O, day! O, misery!

Lucretia.What ails thee, my poor child? She answers not:Her spirit apprehends the sense of pain,But not its cause; suffering has dried awayThe source from which it sprung . . .

Who art thou, questioner? I have no father.(Aside.)She is the madhouse nurse who tends on me,It is a piteous office.

[To Lucretia, in a slow, subdued voice.

Do you knowI thought I was that wretched BeatriceMen speak of, whom her father sometimes halesFrom hall to hall by the entangled hair;At others, pens up naked in damp cellsWhere scaly reptiles crawl, and starves her there,Till she will eat strange flesh. This woful storySo did I overact in my sick dreams,That I imagined . . . no, it cannot be!Horrible things have been in this wide world,Prodigious mixtures, and confusions strangeOf good and ill; and worse have been conceivedThan ever there was found a heart to do.But never fancy imaged such a deedAs . . .

Beatrice.Yet speak it not:For then if this be truth, that other tooMust be a truth, a firm enduring truth,Linked with each lasting circumstance of life,Never to change, never to pass away.Why so it is. This is the Cenci Palace;Thou art Lucretia; I am Beatrice.I have talked some wild words, but will no more.Mother, come near me: from this point of time,I am . . .

[Her voice dies away faintly.

Lucretia.Alas! What has befallen thee, child?What has thy father done?

Beatrice.What have I done?Am I not innocent? Is it my crimeThat one with white hair, and imperious brow,Who tortured me from my forgotten years,As parents only dare, should call himselfMy father, yet should be!-Oh, what am I?What name, what place, what memory shall be mine?What retrospects, outliving even despair?

Lucretia.He is a violent tyrant, surely, child:We know that death alone can make us free;His death or ours. But what can he have doneOf deadlier outrage or worse injury?Thou art unlike thyself; thine eyes shoot forthA wandering and strange spirit. Speak to me,Unlock those pallid hands whose fingers twineWith one another.

Beatrice.'Tis the restless lifeTortured within them. If I try to speakI shall go mad. Ay, something must be done;What, yet I know not . . . something which shall makeThe thing that I have suffered but a shadowIn the dread lightning which avenges it;Brief, rapid, irreversible, destroyingThe consequence of what it cannot cure.Some such thing is to be endured or done:When I know what, I shall be still and calm,And never anything will move me more.But now!-O blood, which art my father's blood,Circling through these contaminated veins,If thou, poured forth on the polluted earth,Could wash away the crime, and punishmentBy which I suffer . . . no, that cannot be!Many might doubt there were a God aboveWho sees and permits evil, and so die:That faith no agony shall obscure in me.

Lucretia.It must indeed have been some bitter wrong;Yet what, I dare not guess. Oh, my lost child,Hide not in proud impenetrable griefThy sufferings from my fear.

Beatrice.I hide them not.What are the words which you would have me speak?I, who can feign no image in my mindOf that which has transformed me: I, whose thoughtIs like a ghost shrouded and folded upIn its own formless horror: of all words,That minister to mortal intercourse,Which wouldst thou hear? For there is none to tellMy misery: if another ever knewAught like to it, she died as I will die,And left it, as I must, without a name.Death! Death! Our law and our religion call theeA punishment and a reward . . . Oh, whichHave I deserved?

Lucretia.The peace of innocence;Till in your season you be called to heaven.Whate'er you may have suffered, you have doneNo evil. Death must be the punishmentOf crime, or the reward of trampling downThe thorns which God has strewed upon the pathWhich leads to immortality.

Beatrice.

Ay; death . . .The punishment of crime. I pray thee, God,Let me not be bewildered while I judge.If I must live day after day, and keepThese limbs, the unworthy temple of Thy spirit,As a foul den from which what Thou abhorrestMay mock Thee, unavenged . . . it shall not be!Self-murder . . . no, that might be no escape,For Thy decree yawns like a Hell betweenOur will and it:-O! In this mortal worldThere is no vindication and no lawWhich can adjudge and execute the doomOf that through which I suffer.

Enter Orsino.(She approaches him solemnly.)

Welcome, Friend!I have to tell you that, since last we met,I have endured a wrong so great and strange,That neither life nor death can give me rest.Ask me not what it is, for there are deedsWhich have no form, sufferings which have no tongue.

Orsino.And what is he who has thus injured you?

Beatrice.The man they call my father: a dread name.

Orsino.It cannot be . . .

Beatrice.What it can be, or not,Forbear to think. It is, and it has been;Advise me how it shall not be again.I thought to die; but a religious aweRestrains me, and the dread lest death itselfMight be no refuge from the consciousnessOf what is yet unexpiated. Oh, speak!

Orsino.Accuse him of the deed, and let the lawAvenge thee.

Beatrice.Oh, ice-hearted counsellor!If I could find a word that might make knownThe crime of my destroyer; and that done,My tongue should like a knife tear out the secretWhich cankers my heart's core; ay, lay all bareSo that my unpolluted fame should beWith vilest gossips a stale mouthèd story;A mock, a byword, an astonishment:-If this were done, which never shall be done,Think of the offender's gold, his dreaded hate,And the strange horror of the accuser's tale,Baffling belief, and overpowering speech;Scarce whispered, unimaginable, wrappedIn hideous hints . . . Oh, most assured redress!

Orsino.You will endure it then?

Beatrice.

Endure?-Ors ino,It seems your counsel is small profit.

[Turns from him, and speaks half to herself.

Ay,All must be suddenly resolved and done.What is this undistinguishable mistOf thoughts, which rise, like shadow after shadow,Darkening each other?

Orsino.Should the offender live?Triumph in his misdeed? and make, by use,His crime, whate'er it is, dreadful no doubt,Thine element; until thou mayst becomeUtterly lost; subdued even to the hueOf that which thou permittest?

Orsino.Blaspheme not! His high Providence commitsIts glory on this earth, and their own wrongsInto the hands of men; if they neglectTo punish crime . . .

Lucretia.But if one, like this wretch,Should mock, with gold, opinion, law, and power?If there be no appeal to that which makesThe guiltiest tremble? If because our wrongs,For that they are unnatural, strange, and monstrous,Exceed all measure of belief? O God!If, for the very reasons which should makeRedress most swift and sure, our injurer triumphs?And we, the victims, bear worse punishmentThan that appointed for their torturer?

Orsino.Think notBut that there is redress where there is wrong,So we be bold enough to seize it.

Lucretia.How?If there were any way to make all sure,I know not . . . but I think it might be goodTo . . .

Orsino.Why, his late outrage to Beatrice;For it is such, as I but faintly guess,As makes remorse dishonour, and leaves herOnly one duty, how she may avenge:You, but one refuge from ills ill endured;Me, but one counsel . . .

Lucretia.For we cannot hopeThat aid, or retribution, or resourceWill arise thence, where every other oneMight find them with less need.

[Beatrice advances.

Orsino.Then . . .

Beatrice.Peace, Orsino!And, honoured Lady, while I speak, I pray,That you put off, as garments overworn,Forbearance and respect, remorse and fear,And all the fit restraints of daily life,Which have been borne from childhood, but which nowWould be a mockery to my holier plea.As I have said, I have endured a wrong,Which, though it be expressionless, is suchAs asks atonement; both for what is past,And lest I be reserved, day after day,To load with crimes an overburthened soul,And be . . . what ye can dream not. I have prayedTo God, and I have talked with my own heart,And have unravelled my entangled will,And have at length determined what is right.Art thou my friend, Orsino? False or true?Pledge thy salvation ere I speak.

Beatrice.And execute what is devised,And suddenly. We must be brief and bold.

Orsino.And yet most cautious.

Lucretia.For the jealous lawsWould punish us with death and infamyFor that which it became themselves to do.

Beatrice.Be cautious as ye may, but prompt. Orsino,What are the means?

Orsino.I know two dull, fierce outlaws,Who think man's spirit as a worm's, and theyWould trample out, for any slight caprice,The meanest or the noblest life. This moodIs marketable here in Rome. They sellWhat we now want.

Lucretia.To-morrow before dawn,Cenci will take us to that lonely rock,Petrella, in the Apulian Apennines.If he arrive there . . .

Beatrice.He must not arrive.

Orsino.Will it be dark before you reach the tower?

Lucretia.The sun will scarce be set.

Beatrice.But I rememberTwo miles on this side of the fort, the roadCrosses a deep ravine; 'tis rough and narrow,And winds with short turns down the precipice;And in its depth there is a mighty rock,Which has, from unimaginable years,Sustained itself with terror and with toilOver a gulf, and with the agonyWith which it clings seems slowly coming down;Even as a wretched soul hour after hour,Clings to the mass of life; yet clinging, leans;And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyssIn which it fears to fall: beneath this cragHuge as despair, as if in weariness,The melancholy mountain yawns . . . below,You hear but see not an impetuous torrentRaging among the caverns, and a bridgeCrosses the chasm; and high above there grow,With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hairIs matted in one solid roof of shadeBy the dark ivy's twine. At noonday here'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night.

Orsino.Before you reach that bridge make some excuseFor spurring on your mules, or loiteringUntil . . .

Beatrice.What sound is that?

Lucretia.Hark! No, it cannot be a servant's stepIt must be Cenci, unexpectedlyReturned . . . Make some excuse for being here.

Beatrice.(To Orsino, as she goes out.)That step we hear approach must never passThe bridge of which we spoke.

[Exeunt Lucretia and Beatrice.

Orsino.What shall I do?Cenci must find me here, and I must bearThe imperious inquisition of his looksAs to what brought me hither: let me maskMine own in some inane and vacant smile. Enter Giacomo, in a hurried manner.

How! Have you ventured hither? Know you thenThat Cenci is from home?

Giacomo.I sought him here;And now must wait till he returns.

Orsino.Great God!Weigh you the danger of this rashness?

Giacomo.Ay!Does my destroyer know his danger? WeAre now no more, as once, parent and child,But man to man; the oppressor to the oppressed;The slanderer to the slandered; foe to foe:He has cast Nature off, which was his shield,And Nature casts him off, who is her shame;And I spurn both. Is it a father's throatWhich I will shake, and say, I ask not gold;I ask not happy years; nor memoriesOf tranquil childhood; nor home-sheltered love;Though all these hast thou torn from me, and more;But only my fair fame; only one hoardOf peace, which I thought hidden from thy hate,Under the penury heaped on me by thee,Or I will . . . God can understand and pardon,Why should I speak with man?

Orsino.Be calm, dear friend.

Giacomo.Well, I will calmly tell you what he did.This old Francesco Cenci, as you know,Borrowed the dowry of my wife from me,And then denied the loan; and left me soIn poverty, the which I sought to mendBy holding a poor office in the state.It had been promised to me, and alreadyI bought new clothing for my raggèd babes,And my wife smiled; and my heart knew repose.When Cenci's intercession, as I found,Conferred this office on a wretch, whom thusHe paid for vilest service. I returnedWith this ill news, and we sate sad togetherSolacing our despondency with tearsOf such affection and unbroken faithAs temper life's worst bitterness; when he,As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse,Mocking our poverty, and telling usSuch was God's scourge for disobedient sons.And then, that I might strike him dumb with shame,I spoke of my wife's dowry; but he coinedA brief yet specious tale, how I had wastedThe sum in secret riot; and he sawMy wife was touched, and he went smiling forth.And when I knew the impression he had made,And felt my wife insult with silent scornMy ardent truth, and look averse and cold,I went forth too: but soon returned again;Yet not so soon but that my wife had taughtMy children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,'Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!What you in one night squander were enoughFor months!' I looked, and saw that home was hell.And to that hell will I return no moreUntil mine enemy has rendered upAtonement, or, as he gave life to meI will, reversing Nature's law . . .

Giacomo.Then . . . Are you not my friend?Did you not hint at the alternative,Upon the brink of which you see I stand,The other day when we conversed together?My wrongs were then less. That word parricide,Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear.

Orsino.It must be fear itself, for the bare wordIs hollow mockery. Mark, how wisest GodDraws to one point the threads of a just doom,So sanctifying it: what you deviseIs, as it were, accomplished.

Giacomo.Is he dead?

Orsino.His grave is ready. Know that since we metCenci has done an outrage to his daughter.

Giacomo.What outrage?

Orsino.That she speaks not, but you mayConceive such half conjectures as I do,From her fixed paleness, and the lofty griefOf her stern brow bent on the idle air,And her severe unmodulated voice,Drowning both tenderness and dread; and lastFrom this; that whilst her step-mother and I,Bewildered in our horror, talked togetherWith obscure hints; both self-misunderstoodAnd darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,Over the truth, and yet to its revenge,She interrupted us, and with a lookWhich told before she spoke it, he must die: . . .

Giacomo.It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;There is a higher reason for the actThan mine; there is a holier judge than me,A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice,Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youthHast never trodden on a worm, or bruisedA living flower, but thou hast pitied itWith needless tears! Fair sister, thou in whomMen wondered how such loveliness and wisdomDid not destroy each other! Is there madeRavage of thee? O, heart, I ask no moreJustification! Shall I wait, Orsino,Till he return, and stab him at the door?

Orsino.Not so; some accident might interposeTo rescue him from what is now most sure;And you are unprovided where to fly,How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen:All is contrived; success is so assuredThat . . .

'Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet. [Thunder, and the sound of a storm.

What! can the everlasting elementsFeel with a worm like man? If so, the shaftOf mercy-wingèd lightning would not fallOn stones and trees. My wife and children sleep:They are now living in unmeaning dreams:But I must wake, still doubting if that deedBe just which is most necessary. O,Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fireIs shaken by the wind, and on whose edgeDevouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and beAs thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinksEven now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:But that no power can fill with vital oilThat broken lamp of flesh. Ha! 'tis the bloodWhich fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:It is the form that moulded mine that sinksInto the white and yellow spasms of death:It is the soul by which mine was arrayedIn God's immortal likeness which now standsNaked before Heaven's judgement seat!

[A bell strikes.

One! Two!The hours crawl on; and when my hairs are white,My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;Chiding the tardy messenger of newsLik

All That I Hear From The Rain At Dawn

all that i hear from the rain at dawnwhen in the usualness of waking up earlythe mind begins what it must do

is this grumbling of things that always leave uswhy people do not staywhy this world rotates and tiltswhy you are left in the corner of the dooralways waiting for someone to return back to your arms again

when the years have dimmed into some rotten memoriesinto dust into airand your face has become nothing but an empty space in one of the lonely cornersin your heart

Shut The Rut Up

Shut the rut up.Why stay stuck in it, As if it is preferred? Is it deserved? You dwell on it as if it is.

Shut that rut up.Leave it to disappear.Are you that familiar with it? Has it for you become endeared?

And what is it you wish I do? Express a contentment in it like you? I'll give you just a few more moments of my time.Then without expressing any empathy to leave, You and that rut you love will instantly be removed...From my mind to be left behind.I'm not into the rut loving business.

Shut the rut up.Why stay stuck in it, As if it is preferred? Is it deserved? You dwell on it as if it is.

Cast Off All My Fears

Once I was on my ownAnd fallingOnce I was all aloneAnd callingFor someone, anyone todayTo help me just a little on my wayAnd then I took a look aroundAnd I saw the love that surrounded meI knew that it was up to meTo cast off all the fears that bound meYoull find you cant go onDemandingOn ways to help you inDefendingYour reason for being who you areAnd asking for the lightest brightest starI found that all I had to doWas believe in the things that are true to meAnd thatll happen naturallyAnd cast off all the fears that bound meYes, people let me say thatI took a look aroundAnd I saw the love that surrounded meI knew that it was up to meCast off all the fears that bound meI had to cast off all the fears that bound me

The Looming Spectre Of My All-Consuming Grief

You broke my heart Lady Justice, and I may never forgive you-What you have done may never be undone; Alas, your iniquity is still something I must live through, Even though the esteem I placed in you is now gone! Your ideals are lofty, but your guardians are most certainly not, Yet, you provide them with judicial immunityTo abscond with all that for which I have fought; This provides them license to treat me with impugnity!

I shall believe in you again once the favor is returned; Trust will only be gained once facts are properly verified-None shall be offered ever again, until it is earned; My position is perfectly clear and should be, thus, clarified: Prove to me that you are worth my once-held belief-And are not the looming spectre of my all-consuming grief!

To All That Love The Far And Blue

TO all that love the far and blue:Whether, from dawn to eve, on footThe fleeing corners ye pursue,Nor weary of the vain pursuit;Or whether down the singing stream,Paddle in hand, jocund ye shoot,To splash beside the splashing breamOr anchor by the willow root:

Or, bolder, from the narrow shorePut forth, that cedar ark to steer,Among the seabirds and the roarOf the great sea, profound and clear;Or, lastly if in heart ye roam,Not caring to do else, and hear,Safe sitting by the fire at home,Footfalls in Utah or Pamere:

Though long the way, though hard to bearThe sun and rain, the dust and dew;Though still attainment and despairInter the old, despoil the new;There shall at length, be sure, O friends,Howe'er ye steer, whate'er ye do -At length, and at the end of ends,The golden city come in view.

The Platonic Lady

I could love thee till I die,Would'st thou love me modestly,And ne'er press, whilst I live,For more than willingly I would give:Which should sufficient be to proveI'd understand the art of love.

I hate the thing is called enjoyment:Besides it is a dull employment,It cuts off all that's life and fireFrom that which may be termed desire;Just like the bee whose sting is goneConverts the owner to a drone.

I love a youth will give me leaveHis body in my arms to wreathe;To press him gently, and to kiss;To sigh, and look with eyes that wishFor what, if I could once obtain,I would neglect with flat disdain.

I'd give him liberty to toyAnd play with me, and count it joy.Our freedom should be full complete,And nothing wanting but the feat.Let's practice, then, and we shall proveThese are the only sweets of love.

Cast Off All My Fears

Ones I was on my one and fallingOnes I was all alone and callingFor some one anyone to dayTo help me just a little on my wayAnd then I took a look aroundI saw all that love that surronded meI know that it was all up to me andCast off all my fears that bound meCast off all my fears that bound meYou find you cant go on deppendingAllways to help your in deep endingYour reason for beeing whom you areAnd asking for that lightest brightest starI tought that all I had to doWas beleaving the things that was true to meAnd let it happen naturlieAnd cast off all my fears that bound meCast off all my fears that bound meSoloI tought that all I had to doWas beleaving the things that was true to meAnd let it happen naturlieAnd cast off all my fears that bound meCast off all my fears that bound meCast off all my fears that bound me

To Shut Down, Turn Off and Ignore

The last time someone said to me, I couldn't do what I enjoyed in my own hometown.That I would have to leave to find peace of mind.With a creative outlook I had that sought activity.If I wished to witness success believed.Well...That I achieved! And it seems so many years ago.In a place I was told I should leave and go!

Today...As I think of those who said, I had to go away...To realize those dreams I had in my head.I think of how embarrassing it must be to feel, To discourage someone who reveals a determination...That proves doubters only motivate, The whims of procrastinators.

And my mama always said to me...'I know you aint paying me no attention, Pretending to be listening.'

And my mama was so right.I've developed when to shut down, turn off and ignore.Not out of disrespect.But rather to protect my own survival and footsteps.

Some folks are inspired by deadends.And I must admit, The challenge of them and what they present...Inspires me to remove obstacles.And I have never been able to explain that to anyone.

The House of Clay

THERE was a house, a house of clay, Wherein the inmate sat all day, Merry and poor; For Hope sat with her, heart to heart, Fond and kind, fond and kind, Vowing he never would depart, -- Till all at once he changed his mind: "Sweetheart, good by!" He slipped away And shut the door. But Love came past, and, looking in, With smile that pierced like sunbeam thin Through wall, roof, floor, Stood in the midst of that poor room, Grand and fair, grand and fair, Making a glory out of gloom: -- Till at the window mocked cruel Care: Love sighed; "All lose, and nothing win?" -- He shut the door. Then o'er the close-barred house of clay Kind clematis and woodbine gay Crept more and more; And bees hummed merrily outside, Loud and strong, loud and strong,The inner silentness to hide,The patient silence all day long; Till evening touched with finger grayThe bolted door. Most like, the next step passing by Will be the Angel's, whose calm eye Marks rich, marks poor: Who, fearing not, at any gate Stands and calls, stands and calls; At which the inmate opens straight, -- Whom, ere the crumbling clay-house falls, He takes in kind arms silently, And shuts the door.

All That I Owe the Fellows of the Grave

All that I owe the fellows of the graveAnd all the dead bequeathed from pale estatesLies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood,Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots.O all I owe is all the flesh inherits,My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves,My sisters tears that sing upon my headMy brothers' blood that salts my open wounds

Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop,My fallen filled, that had the hint of death,Heir to the telling senses that aloneAcquaint the flesh with a remembered itch,I round this heritage as rounds the sunHis winy sky, and , as the candles moon,Cast light upon my weather. I am heirTo women who have twisted their last smile,To children who were suckled on a plague,To young adorers dying on a kiss.All such disease I doctor in my blood,And all such love's a shrub sown in the breath.

Then look, my eyes, upon this bonehead fortuneAnd browse upon the postures of the dead;All night and day I eye the ragged globeThrough periscopes rightsighted from the grave;All night and day I wander in these sameWax clothes that wax upon the ageing ribs;All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove,And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat;All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet.